Yodeva in JV with Alpla
Baddi to get the first plant
The $2 billion Austria based Alpla Group recently announced its new venture into the Indian rigid plastic packaging (bottles and caps) sector with the setting up of its first manufacturing unit in Himachal Pradesh. The company has made an initial investment of $5 million and would invest a similar amount to set up more facilities.
The global plastic packaging major set up a 74:26 joint venture company - Alpla India Pvt Ltd., with Indian rigid plastic packaging solutions company Yodeva Plastics Pvt Ltd. Under this joint venture, Alpla Group is setting up its first state-of-the-art-plant in Baddi near Chandigarh with a majority stake of 74 per. This is the first Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Himachal Pradesh in the plastics sector. The facility is expected to generate direct and indirect employment for around 600 people.
Vagish Dixit, Managing Director of Alpla India, and promoter director of Yodeva Plastics, says, ‘’The manufacturing unit in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, is on stream with an initial capacity of 0.5 million bottles a day, which will be doubled to 1 million next year.’’
‘’While this is the seventh facility established by the group in Asia and one is on the anvil for China, India is a preferred location to set up technical centres but we will look at the feasibility,’’ says Alpla CEO, Guenther Lehner.
The domestic rigid plastic packaging sector is growing at 15-20 per cent every year and is pegged at about $2 billion. Small regional players dominate the sector and the Govt. de-listed it from the small-scale industries list three years ago. ‘’We are hopeful of generating revenues to the tune of $15 million in the next couple of years,’’ said Gunther Lehner, Chairman, Alpla India.
The company is also looking at other locations for setting up more plants. On its radar are Uttaranchal, Hyderabad, Pondicherry and Silvassa. The location of the manufacturing unit would be determined by the location of the client's plant. ‘’Companies with turnovers in the range $100-300 million are ideal clients for Alpla India,’’ says Dixit.
