Dow eyes $1bn revenues by 2010

Chennai: Dow Chemical International, the world’s largest chemical company based out of the US, is betting big on the proposed Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Regions (PCPIR) in the country to scale up its manufacturing capabilities in line with future business opportunities.

“We expect our business in India to touch $1 billion by 2010 from the present $300 million. Dow looks at the proposed chemical hubs as an opportunity to scale up its manufacturing capabilities in the country,” Peter G Halloran, director-supply chain, Mumbai service centre, Dow Chemical International, told Business Standard.

He said the company was in talks with various government agencies to set up manufacturing facilities here. Once these discussions reach a final point, company teams from the US would visit India to give a concrete shape to the investment plans, Halloran said responding to a question about the product range that it was looking at.

Dow, a $49-billion company with around 200 manufacturing facilities around the world, is into a broad range of products, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, paints, and packaging products.

It may be recalled that Commerce Minister Kamal Nath recently said that since Dow did not have a direct link to the Bhopal gas tragedy, its investments in India would not be affected.The company also wants to see 50 per cent of its R&D initiatives coming from India in the next 3-4 years, according to Halloran.

He said the manpower at the company’s R&D centre at Pune would be scaled up to 500 from the present 100 in the next 2-3 years.

Similarly, the manpower at the engineering R&D centre at Chennai will be ramped up to 1,000 from the present 100 while the number of people at the Mumbai service centre, involved in BPO activities among other services, will be doubled from the current 250.