Becton To Pour $100 Million In Five Years

Becton Dickinson, a United States-based medical devices and diagnostic products maker, plans to raise investments in India by $100 million over five years, its president for Asia Pacific said on Thursday.

Eugenio Naschold said the company also plans to expand more aggressively in sales and marketing in South Korea as well as introduce more product lines.

"Because of the aggressive investments, we expect to double our sales (In the region) every three years or so," Naschold told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Definitely we expect much better profitability and we now have a higher order of sales."

With worries about AIDS growing in Asia, the company's strategy is to convert and educate the public to switch to disposable medical devices. "We create the market rather than compete for market share with our competitors," he said.

Becton Dickinson already has a $6 million investment at Bawal, in Haryana, which will start production in September.

Two weeks ago, Becton's board gave it approval for an additional $40 million investment. Work on the plant will start in April with production scheduled to begin 18 months after that.

The Indian facility will produce intravenous and hypodermic syringes. "We foresee in the next five years we will be investing a total of $100 million in India, including the existing investments," Naschold said.