Chennai: Kobelco Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., a group company of Kobe Steel, Ltd., inaugurated its first manufacturing plant in India to manufacture Hydraulic Excavators, enabling Kobelco to make a full-scale entry into India’s rapidly growing Construction Equipment Market. This plant will be the first manufacturing facility of the Kobe Steel Group in India. The new plant is located in Sri City, about 55 kilometers north of Chennai. This modern facility is constructed on 68,000 Sq. mts. of land, and will have Assembly, Painting and Shipping lines.

The plant will be a part of the existing Kobelco Construction Equipment India Pvt. Ltd. (KCEI) which currently markets & services KOBELCO brand Excavators from its Head Quarters at Noida (near Delhi). With this state-of-the-art plant, KCEI will become a full-line company covering Manufacturing, Marketing and After Sales services. KCEI is a joint venture between Kobelco Construction Machinery and the ITOCHU Group. Kobelco will hold 95% equity share of KCEI.

With an initial capacity of 1,200 units per year, the plant will initially produce 20-tonne class machines, for which the demand is the highest in India. Flexible plant equipment will enable KCEI to also make large machines, to meet future growth in demand.

The plant was inaugurated by Mr.ShigetoKotani, President, Kobelco Construction Machinery, Japan in the presence of Mr. Sam Bob, Industries Secretary, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh. Many officials of the Andhra Pradesh Government, representatives of Kobelco Group Companies worldwide also graced the occasion.

Mr. Kotani said, “Kobelco realized that increasing its presence in the steadily growing Asian region is vital for its growth. This led to the decision to build a plant in the Indian market. The Construction Machinery market is a global business and the Indian market is a huge potential market, after China, in the growing Asian region”.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr.Vikram Sharma, MD & CEO of the Indian operations said, “Kobelco expects to grow rapidly with initiation of local manufacturing. The total investment is about Rs 100 crore over a period of about 3 to 4 years.”

Mr B Sam Bob, IAS, Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce Department, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh said, “On this occasion, I strongly welcome the initiatives from the Japanese investors to come forward to set up manufacturing units at Sri City in the State of Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh had taken several proactive steps to attract industries by following most investor friendly policies like single window clearances, lowest power tariffs among the industrialised states of the country, creating sound industrial infrastructure, and developing large pool of technical manpower etc.”

“I take this opportunity to once again request the Japanese investors to come to the state of Andhra Pradesh and set up their industries here. Government of AP in committed to facilitate the investors for successful implementation their projects,” he further added.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Ravindra Sannareddy, MD, Sri City, said “We are proud to have the Kobe Group establish its first manufacturing plant in India at Sri City. The state of Andhra Pradesh is also proud to have become the home to the State’s first automotive manufacturing plant. This is a good location for the excavators industry as the State has the largest number of construction companies in India as well as the leading names in the industry.”

With this Indian plant in operation now, Kobelco Construction Machinery has plants at six locations – Japan, China, Thailand and India, in addition to US and Italy.