Bayer plans to meet growing Indian PU market

13 March 2008 18:40  [Source: ICIS news]

NEW DELHI (ICIS news)--Bayer MaterialScience plans to keep up with India's growing polyurethane (PU) market by developing tailor-made PU systems, a company executive said on Thursday.

India's PU market is expected to grow by 10-12% over the next five years, said Ajay Durrani, head of the company's PU unit in India.

“We stand ourselves separately in terms of innovative solutions,” he said.

The company could share with its Indian customers the technological know-how derived from its global network of more than 20 system houses, Durrani said.

Bayer had started operations of such a system house near New Delhi last year, he said.

“Northern India is a major polyurethane consumption base, hence our approach of being near to our customer signifies our investment in this part [of the country],” he said. However, Bayer had no immediate plans to build a second system house in India.

Durrani estimated that India’s total PU consumption was around 140,000-145,000 tonnes last year, about 10% higher from the previous year.

However, measuring PU consumption is difficult due to the structure of the Indian market, Durrani said.

“The India market is a very fragmented market, primarily because there are so many [PU] producers, small scale, big scale, and there are a lot of [PU] producers who are not even registered with the government,” he said.

Bayer supplies PU systems and raw materials to various application sectors in India, such as automotive, appliances, construction and footwear.

By: Chow Bee Lin
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