ITC plans investment of Rs 25K crore in 5-7 years

Diversified conglomerate ITC Limited today said it plans to invest about Rs 25,000 crore in the next 5-7 in various projects.

Chairman Y C Deveshwar told shareholders at the company's AGM here that the company has planned to undertake investments of nearly Rs 25,000 crore spread over 40 projects across the country in the next 5-7 years.

The company is also working towards entering the nutrition, health and well-being segment.

"ITC's growing presence in agriculture, food and personal care products is enabling a synergy of R&D capabilities to deliver future products aimed at nutrition, health and well-being", Deveshwar said.

He said recognising the special attention needed to tackle common health disorders in the country, several long term research platforms had been designed to create unique interventions.

This, he said, would attempt to address problems of cardio-vascular health, cognition and diabetes.

Deveshwar said the company had built a state-of-the art R&D centre at Bangalore which would provide the required platform to deliver such future products.

Aiming to become the number one FMCG player in the country (barring cigarettes), Deveshwar said the company was eyeing a topline of around Rs 15,000 crore over the next five to seven years from this new line of business.

"ITC is making an audacious campaign to build Indian brands", he said.

ITC's segment revenue from non-cigarette FMCG business had already crossed Rs 5500 crore, he noted.

Referring to Wimco, which was acquired by the company in 2005, he said the land of the closed factories at Maharashtra and Chennai would be utilised by converting them into food parks.

On export of food products by ITC, Deveshwar said that 'Aashirwaad' brand atta was being exported to New Zealand, Australia, US and Canada.

But the government had imposed restrictions on such exports for ensuring food security in wheat-based products, he said.

He said that the company had suggested that value-added exports of food products should never be stopped but can come with some obligation imposed on the company to import equivalent amount of wheat into the country.

Deveshwar said the suggestion was receiving a favourable attention from the government.

Regarding the Nepal subsidiary, he said it was the number one company in that country in terms of size and employees.