Corporate Update

Lenzing upbeat about India, to set up viscose plant in China

Already well-known for its speciality cellulosic fibres Lenzing Modal and Tencel, Lenzing Fibers is all set to expand its base in India. The Austria based, world’s cellulose fiber technology leader, Lenzing Fibers is soon becoming a more aggressive player in the Indian textile market. Dynamic and environment friendly generation of fibers from Lenzing have become the perfect blending partners in India for silks, woollens, cottons, linens and polyester alike. The company believes that good technical support is what separates the serious from the not-so-serious players in the fiber market. The volume of Lenzing’s fibers sold in India in the last two years has risen from some 400 tonnes per annum to 1,000 tonnes per annum, according to Mr Pradeep Roongta, MD, Stuti Exports, sole agency for Lenzing group in India. The company has entered into a joint venture to set up a 60,000 tonnes per annum viscose fiber plant in China. Lenzing is also working towards utilizing the Indian potential in developing a market for its speciality fibers. According to the company, China and India are two highly potential regions for its speciality fibers. “With a new plant in China, Lenzing is keeping all options open with regard to having a viscose plant in other consuming countries”, according to Mr Thomas Gaidoschik, director -Lenzing Fibers (Hong Kong). The plant in China is designed to meet the increased fiber requirement of the textile industry and is also expected to provide raw material for the booming Asian region. While companies throughout India use Lenzing Fibers, Panipat, Karur and Erode are most recent to join the Lenzing bandwagon. Lenzing group’s marketing team which included Mr Thomas Gaidoschik, Mr Peter Krueger, technical marketing manager - Asia and Mr Hans Leitner, senior technical manager was in India recently. Road shows were organised in Delhi and in Coimbatore to showcase textile fabrics made of Lenzing Modal and Tencel range of fibers. The company’s technical marketing activities across India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have been assigned to Mr Nitin Gupta who is based in Mumbai. Lenzing is associated with Rajasthan Textile Mills located in Bhawani Mandi for almost half a decade.

Down south, Lenzing is associated with Coimbatore based Lakshmi Mills for more than two years in the production of finer count yarns. Together both the companies are working on a project on ’enhancing’ cotton yarn using minimal proportion of Tencel in blend with cotton. Similarly, Lenzing is also involved in a project associating its fiber speciality with silk to produce yarns in the 20s to 60s count range in India; by tying up with Bapuji Institute of Technology, Davangere.