Cooper Weighs Shifting Manufacturing To India

Cooper Industries, a Fortune 500 multinational with a turnover of $4 billion, is planning to locate some of its manufacturing facilities in India in the next two years.

Cooper has six business divisions manufacturing electrical products, tools and hardware.

Del Parkinson, manager (product & market development), Cooper Bussmann, a business division of Cooper Industries, said, "all the business divisions are considering relocation to India to take advantage of the low manufacturing cost. Apart from big domestic demand, India could be used as distribution centre for Asia- Pacific region and as an export base".

However, he ruled out shifting of existing manufacturing facilities to India.

 

At present, only Cooper Bussmann -- the world's largest manufacture of circuit protection and power quality equipment- is operating in India from its 21000 sq ft plant in Pondicherry.

Martin Mullin, operations director of Cooper Bussmann, said the company had invested around Rs 17 crore in the Pondicherry plant, adding that they had invested Rs 6 crore in the second phase of expansion. "We are optimistic of our operations in India. The third phase of expansion is planned in first half of 2002 with an investment outlay of Rs 10 crore for the next two years," he added.

He further stated that company had targeted a turnover of Rs 80 crore over the next five years with exports accounting for two-third of the turnover.

Cooper Bussmann India is projecting a turnover of Rs 26 crore for the current financial year with exports accounting for Rs 17 crore.

In January 2000, Cooper Bussmann acquired the fuse division of S& S in Pondicherry, which shared a common technology parentage with Brush of UK.

From January 2002, the company is planning to move away from brands inherited from S& S and promote their own brand in India Martin said that, in future the company would develop products specifically targeted for Indian manufacturers and would develop Pondicherry as a base for Cooper Industries in India.

"We are also developing Pondicherry as a main distribution hub in Asia for all Cooper Industries products," he added.