Norway's Jotun Group eyes Indian paint market

Kochi, Mar 27 (UNI) Eyeing the Rs 8,000 crore Indian paint market, Norway-based Jotun Group is expanding its operations with a new production facility at Pune in Maharashtra.

Talking to newspersons here today, Company Regional Manager (Kerala) Iype Koshy said ''the production unit, which has been inaugurated in March, is on a trial run and will start full-fledged production by the end of May.'' He said the Rs 100-crore unit would have a production capacity of 50 million litre of wet paint and 10,000 metric tonne of powder coating.

Jotun, which has presence in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, is planning to expand its foothold in Kerala by opening nearly 15 more outlets, taking the total to 35 by the end of 2008.

Though the Indian paint industry was growing at 12 per cent per annum, the per capita consumption of paint was very low at 0.8 kg per annum when compared to four kg in South-East Asian nations and 22 kg in developed countries, he said.

In India, the industrial paint segment accounted for 30 per cent while decorative paint segment had a share of 70 per cent against a global average of 50:50.

Jotun Group, which had 67 companies and 40 production facilities across the globe, was aiming to achieve a market share of eight per cent in India by 2010, Mr Koshy said.

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