Gujarat Ambuja posts jump in exports

The Ahmedabad-based Gujarat Ambuja Exports Ltd has registered a steep hike in exports in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004. The exports of the company for the fiscal 2003-04 stood at Rs 520 crore compared with the exports of Rs 233 crore for the previous year, registering a hike of 123 per cent.

Commenting on the performance, Vijaykumar Gupta, chairman and managing director the company said that Gujarat Ambuja Exports was the highest exporter of groundnut oil from the country in the past fiscal. "The company accounted for 40 per cent of the total groundnut oil exports from India," Gupta said.

He added that the company has improved its capacity under each segment of operations, namely soya seed and other oil seed crushing, edible oil refining, cotton yarn spinning, starch and other products. He added that growth was also recorded in the wheat processing and cattle feed production.

Gupta projected a turnover of Rs 1500 crore for the fiscal year 2004-05, stating that major expansion activities will be taken up in the present fiscal.

In the fiscal ended 2003-04, the company posted a turnover of Rs 1,090 crore, compared with a turnover of Rs 621 crore during the previous fiscal, an increase of around 75 per cent.

On the future expansion plans, Gupta said that a 1,500 tonne per day soya solvent extraction plant and a 300 tonne per day edible oil refining plant are being set up at Akola in Maharashtra.

"The capacity of the cotton yarn, wheat flour and solvent extraction crushing plants at Pithampur are also being increased this fiscal," he said.