Nerolac plans R&D units at two plants

Goodlass Nerolac Paints is looking at setting up research and development (R&D) centres at two of its plants. The company will set up these centres at its plants in Lote, Maharashtra, and in Bawal, Haryana, to cater to customer-specific and product-specific research.

H M Bharuka, managing director, Goodlass Nerolac, said, "We are looking at extending our R&D capabilities near our plants. This is being done so that product-specific and customer-related research can be done at the plants itself."

Nerolac recently setup an R&D centre in Mumbai at its Parel plant, which was shutdown some time back. "We have a strategy to invest around 1.5 per cent of our turnover in research, to adapt to the constantly changing technology and upgrade our existing systems," Bharuka said.

The company is looking at enhancing its product portfolio for catering to the automobile segment, he added.

Nerolac is also considering to tap the foreign market in the auto segment. The company currently supplies material to some of its parent company - Kansai Paints' global customers.

"Currently, we export very little material, however, we are waiting for the WTO regulations to come into place as the existing system involves a lot of duties. There will be a thrust on exporting products to global auto majors once the WTO regime comes into effect," Bharuka said.

Nerolac currently commands a 65 per cent market share in the domestic automobile paints sector.

The company is expecting to clock a volume growth of around 12 per cent in the current financial year, against an industry growth of around 10 per cent.

"We expect the automobile segment to continue driving the growth in the industrial paints sector this year," Bharuka said.