100 acre rubber park to come up in Kerala

Kochi, Apr 21: A new 100 acre rubber park is to be set up in Pathanamthitta District of Kerala and Apollo Tyres has agreed to consider coming in as an ''anchor investor'' for the project, Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said today.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr Ramesh said Apollo Tyres Chairman had agreed during a meeting with him two days ago to look at this proposal and get back to the Kerala Government in a month's time.

The meeting was also attended by Kerala Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem.

Mr Ramesh said Apollo Tyres had also agreed to submit to the Kerala Government within a month a comprehensive plan to shift its existing premier tyre plant from Kalmassery to Irapuram, the site of the first rubber park in Ernakulam District.

Stating the tyre major was interested in staying on as a major investor in Kerala, Mr Ramesh said it was upto the state government to convince it not to pull out of Kerala.

In this context, he mentioned that the company had recently acquired 130 acre near Chennai to set up a new tyre factor.

Reiterating that natural rubber was on the 'negative list' of imports, he said there was no question of reducing the current 25 per cent import duty on it.

Stating Thailand had asked for reduction in the duty during the negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN, Mr Ramesh said India had not agreed to it.

Of the seven commodities which were under discussion with the ASEAN, four -- natural rubber, cardamom, cashew and raw coconut -- were on the negative list and there would be no reduction in the import duties on these.

An initial offer had been made by India to cut the the import duty on tea and coffee from the current 100 per cent to 50 per cent and on pepper from 70 per cent to 50 per cent.

''This however is only an initial offer which can be reviewed and liberalised or tightened further. So far, no agreement has been made,'' he added.

Regarding the FTA with ASEAN, Mr Ramesh said negotiations, which were going on for the past one-and-a-half years, are likely to be concluded in the latter half of this year.

UNI