• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Schwing to set up centre in Chennai

M.Ramesh

CHENNAI, Aug. 22

SCHWING GMBH of Germany has decided to set up a design and software development centre here. The centre will cater to the needs of all Schwing plant spread across 14 countries, according to company sources.

The centre has received the approval from the Software Technology Park of India, which makes it eligible for tax breaks. It will be a division of the group's Indian arm, Schwing Stetter (India) Pvt Ltd and become operational by the end of this calender y ear, sources said.

Schwing group is engaged in the manufacture of concrete batching plants, concrete laying pumps and mobile ready mix concrete machines. Schwing Stetter (India) is putting up a Rs. 18 crore plant at Irungattukottai for producing these equipment. The constr uction of the plant is likely to commence next month.

Meanwhile, Schwing Stetter is assembling these machines at a different manufacturing facility. In the first six months of the current calendar year, the company achieved a turnover of Rs. 11.75 crores and made a net profit of Rs. 72.68 lakhs. ``This is i n line with the projections,'' Mr. M. Subramanian, Chief Financial Officer, told Business Line. The company had projected a turnover of Rs. 27 crores and net profit Rs. 2 crores this year.

The company had developed some 25-odd vendors, to help in the process of indigenisation. The concrete laying pumps are now around 60 per cent indigenised. In the high-value concrete batch making plants, the company had indigenised around 30 per cent. RMC machines are almost fully imported, with the local content being only 20 per cent. The company proposes to indigenise further, so as to bring down the cost of production.