| The Austrian company set up a 74:26 joint venture company "" Alpla India Pvt Ltd "" with Indian rigid plastic packaging solutions company Yodeva Plastics Pvt Ltd for the foray. |
| The manufacturing unit in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, is onstream with an initial capacity of 0.5 million bottles a day, which will be doubled next year, said Vagish Dixit, managing director of Alpla India, and promoter director of Yodeva Plastics. |
| The domestic rigid plastic packaging sector is pegged at about $2 billion and is growing at 15-20 per cent every year. The sector, delisted from the small-scale industries list three years ago, is dominated by small regional players. |
| "We are hopeful of generating revenues to the tune of $15 million in the next couple of years," said Gunther Lehner, chairman, Alpla India. |
| Reckitt Benckiser is the anchor client for Alpla's first plant in India. The company is looking at other locations for setting up more plants. |
| On its radar are Uttaranchal, Hyderabad, Pondicherry and Silvassa. "I would be disappointed if we don't announce another plant in India by the end of this year," said Dixit. |
| The location of the manufacturing unit would be determined by the location of the client's plant, as transporting bottles for a distance of over 200 km is not economically viable, said Lehner. |
| Companies with turnovers in the range $100-300 million are ideal clients for Alpla India, said Dixit. |
| Alpla Group, which is present in over 30 countries, has seven plants in Asia, including the one at Baddi, and plans to set up one in China early next year. |
| The region, which currently contributes less than 5 per cent to Alpla Group's turnover, is expected to contribute about 15 per cent over the next three years, said Lehner. |
| The company, which has four technical centres worldwide, is also planning to set up one in Asia, India being one of the preferred locations, said Dixit. |
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