The Hindu Business Line : Danfoss bullish on India

Speaking to newspersons, Mr Christian Ege, Managing Director & CEO of Danfoss Industries, said that since the setting up of an assembling plant for compressors at Sholinganallur, on the outskirts the city, in 1999, the business had grown to a turnover of Rs 28.6 crore.

The company is in the business of marketing refrigeration and air-conditioner components and variable speed devices for energy conservation. The Indian subsidiary may also take up the third business of the parent company - components for heating equipment - in future, he said.

"We see a tremendous opportunity for growth in India," he said. The expectations are for a 40-per cent growth in the coming three years. It is opening its corporate office here.

According to Mr Jorgen M. Clausen, President and CEO of Danfoss A/S, the expectation is to reach a business of Rs 100 crore from the Indian company by 2005. The assembly plant near Chennai was set up at an investment of $6 million.

Mr Clausen said that half of the turnover of the Danfoss Group globally came from making components for air-conditioning and refrigerating systems.

A quarter of the business was from heating systems and another quarter from variable motor controls. Globally the group, which is still family-owned, had a turnover of $2 billion, he said. It has grown into one of the largest industrial companies in Denmark.

In the past decade, the group has followed the policy of globalisation and has set up plants outside Denmark and Europe. In the last five years, one plant each had been set up in Russia, China and India. In these years, the Russian plant has grown to a turnover of Rs 60 crore and the Chinese plant to a turnover of Rs 180 crore.

Mr Ege said that the Indian subsidiary had also made a breakthrough in supplying variable speed devices for the hotel industry. While these devices were retrofitted in some of the hotels with the existing air-conditioning systems, in new ones the system was designed with the device.

According to him, energy savings can be between 12 and 15 per cent for large hotels, and the payback period has been found to be less than two years. "In any hotel, 60 per cent of the expenses go into running the air-conditioning system."

Mr Michael Sternberg, Ambassador of Denmark, said that the Danish Government was phasing out conventional development aid programmes and moving into financial support for private sector industries.

This could be through mixed credit or soft loans with a grant element of up to 40 per cent. The term could be as long as 17 years, with a grace period of seven years, and the interest could be zero per cent.

Such support would be available in the future for development projects of Union and State Governments and also private sector companies.

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