Gildemeister to set up technology centre in India

Bangalore, Feb 15 (UNI) Calling the Indian machine tool market as 'ambitious', German metal cutting major Gildemeister today said it was planning to set up a production facility to manufacture CNC metal cutting machines.

Thorsten Schmidt, Member of the Executive Board of the 1.9 billion Euro company, told newspersons at the 'Diemould India' and 'Tooltech 2008' expositions, which began here today, that the company had applied with the German government so set up its only second manufacturing plant in Asia, after its Beijing plant opened in 2002 had proved a big success.

"We have eleven plants -- one each in Italy and Poland and eight in Germany, apart from Beijing. We are full of expectation for the ambitious Indian market. India will also be our major supply point of materials and tools to our other plants. We plan to produce 300 machines in the first year when we start operation likely in 2010," he said.

DMG India, the sales and services arm of the company had been a leading player in the country's CNC metal cutting machine tool industry. It had decided to set up a Technology Centre in the city by the end of this year with two showrooms.

"We will have separate showrooms for new and used machines. The company's new machines business include turning, milling, ultrasonic and later technologies," he said.

DMG India Managing Director S G Narayan said with the fast paced growth of Indian machine and tool industry had witnessed and the cost competitiveness, the country was poised to emerge as a manufacturing hub for machine tools. The Centre would be dedicated to develop customised solutions for the Indian customers across all industries, he said.

With a direct presence in India since 1999, the company's sales was growing at over 20 per cent every year and it markets and supports a wide range of CNC metal cutting machine tools from entry level to high end multi-tasking centres for almost every manufacturer, he added.

At the exposition, DMG showcased its three latest machines DMU-40 Monoblock, DMC-65, A duoBLOCK horizontal machine center for auto industry and MSL-60 a price competitive single spindle auto lathe.

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