Noida-headquartered Uflex has targeted a revenue of `7,500 crore (US$ 1.172 billion) for 2015-16 compared with `6,180 crore (approximately US$ 950 million) achieved in the previous financial year. Currently, Uflex has 11 manufacturing plants in India, and plants in the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Egypt, Poland and the US. The company’s top management has spoken out in recent weeks to the business media and said that it is extremely bullish on the Indian packaging industry and flexible packaging industry in particular, with expectations that it will continue to maintain its double-digit growth.
While Uflex has plans to build yet another plant overseas at an undisclosed location out of the three or four it is looking at, it has made public its three-year expansion plans to set up India’s largest flexible packaging plant at Sanand in Gujarat. While Uflex’s senior executive has spoken of a total investment in the region of `1,800 crore or approximately US$ 284 million for expansion in the next three years, it is estimated that in the first phase the investment at the 70-acre site in Sanand may entail a Capex of anywhere from `350 to 550 crore.
Ashok Chaturvedi, chairman and managing director of Uflex, has been quoted in the financial media as saying, “Initially, the plant capacity would be pegged at 80,000 metric tonnes, and we would double the capacity in the second phase to 160,000 tonnes yearly to make it the largest flexible packaging plant in India at one location under one roof.” The first stage of the plant for liquid packaging is expected to start production in the next year and establish the company’s presence in Western India where it currently does not have any plants.
