RCom plans to set up SEZ near Mumbai campus

Mumbai: Reliance Communications has embarked on a Rs 1,000-crore project to develop part of its 132 acre campus near Mumbai as a special economic zone.

The SEZ at the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City in Navi Mumbai will focus on IT and IT-enabled services, the company chairman, Mr Anil Ambani, said.

“All approvals for this project have been received and Reliance Infrastructure has been contracted to implement it over the next few years,” he said.

The city-based company is currently at the peak of its capital expenditure cycle; the capex spends are expected to taper off in the next fiscal year. This is because many of the company’s large-scale initiatives currently are at the project implementation stage,’ Mr Ambani said.

Reliance Communications has already articulated that it will spend about $11 billion in capex from fiscal 2007, to fiscal 2009.

Mr Ambani agreed that the recent macro economic conditions had led to a ‘tempering of expectations’ in the immediate future for the telecom sector.

“We believe that this is a cyclical downturn, temporary phenomena which will once again be followed by renewed economic momentum,” he said.

The RCom scrip was up by 2.33 per cent to close at Rs 333.9 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.