PG Paper targets turnover of 100 mn pound in 5 years

Scotland-based paper supplier PG Paper is eyeing nearly three-fold jump in turnover to 100 million pound in the next five years, majority of which is expected to come from its Indian operations.
The company, which had a turnover of 35 million pound last year, is present in 55 countries and plans to expand to at least 100 countries in five years. It will open a manufacturing unit in India this year.
"We are expanding and diversifying quite aggressively. The paper business is growing rapidly and we had a 40 per cent growth last year," PG Paper founder and CEO Poonam Gupta told PTI.

She said the market has been very challenging in the last 2-3 years but the company has managed to grow business and is still expanding into new markets.
"The aim is to make PG Paper have over 100 million pound turnover in the next five years and have presence in 100 countries," she added.
Gupta, who was born and brought up in the Capital before moving to Scotland in 2002, said India is one of the largest markets for the company, contributing to around 60 per cent of the total turnover.

"It is my home market...Our major focus in India at this moment is the packaging industry," she said, adding Turkey and China are the other two largest markets for the company.

She said one of the main reasons for the company to focus on India was that when she started the company in 2003, India was a net importer of paper.
"Most of paper was sourced from the West although now the dynamics have changed and it also comes from the Far East," she said.
When asked if the company was planning to set up paper manufacturing plant in India, she said: "It is something... that should come through in next year or so."
At present, the company sources papers from third party manufacturers and sells it under its own brand.

The company supplies around 1,300 different types of paper products including paper for newspaper, magazines, packaging papers, speciality paper and tissue paper, among others.
A Scottish-Indian entrepreneur, Gupta is also a philanthropist and was conferred the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBIE) in April this year.