St Mary's Rubbers Private Ltd, an exporter of centrifuge latex from India, has entered into the production and marketing of medical gloves by establishing a greenfield unit at Kanjirappally, near Kottayam. Chief minister Oommen Chandy will formally inaugurate the factory on Sunday.
Addressing a press conference here today, Sunny Jacob, managing director of the Kottayam-based company, said the unit would produce 7 million pairs of gloves on a monthly basis and this would be expanded to 40 million pairs in 18 months. The company has invested Rs 40 crore in the first phase and will invest Rs 125 crore for commissioning the full phase.
The second line of production will be commissioned within six months. The factory, which has a built up area of 125,000 sft, can hold 4 such production lines. It will market surgical and examination gloves under the brand name, Medismart, across India and abroad. The company targets to export 75 per cent of the total production and achieve a turnover of Rs 85 crore from the unit in the first year of operation, he added.
He also said there was a huge gap between the supply and demand of medical gloves across the world. While the demand has been rising 20 per cent per annum, production was up 5 per cent only.
Benadict Boby Sebastian, vice president, marketing said a major chunk of the demand was being met through import from China and Malaysia. China, Malaysia and Thailand were leading the gloves industry across the globe. There are only 20 units in India, of which 11 are in Kerala.
