Aditya Birla rolls out cement brand

Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla Group yesterday launched its cement brand UltraTech in Bangladesh.

“Bangladesh is an emerging market in the world economy with immense potential, where it requires building a huge number of infrastructure facilities. And for that, the necessity of quality construction materials comes in,” said Dev Banerjee, country head of Bangladesh operations of UltraTech Cement.

“Since our brand has gained reliability and trust in the regional and European markets, we hope we can make a difference,” said Banerjee at the inauguration ceremony organised at the Radisson Water Garden Hotel in Dhaka.

The company’s production plant is situated in Muktarpur, Munshiganj, which has a production capacity of 2,000 tonnes a day, he said.

UltraTech manages to support its own energy requirement by setting up a 10 megawatt captive power plant inside the factory. Also, the company is equipped with the latest technologies that allow it to operate without polluting the environment.

UltraTech cement will be available on the local market from today.

Vivek Agarwal, CEO of international business of Ultratech Cement, said: “We are very optimistic about helping Bangladesh build sustainable infrastructure and thereby be a part of the fast growing economy.”

Earlier, Aditya Birla Group acquired Dubai-based ETA Star Cement Company in April last year, and, by extension, the local operation of Emirates Cement in Bangladesh.

Although the cost of the acquisition was not disclosed, the enterprise value of the deal works out to around Rs 1,700 crore, according to a report published in Times of India on April 30 2010.

The report also said UltraTech has acquired more than 51 percent stake in ETA Star Cement.

At present, 35 cement manufacturers operate in Bangladesh, of which five are multinational companies. Manufacturers sell as many as 11 lakh tonnes of cement a month, said industry insiders.

thedailystar

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