India: Dalmia Cement has announced details about the 2.5Mt/yr cement plant it is currently building in Belgaum, Karnataka. Mumbai newspaper DNA has reported that the Indian cement producer predicts that the plant will create over 1000 jobs when it opens in March 2014. Dalmia has invested over US$210m on the project.
"Though we have had a good presence in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Karnataka has not been a great market for us so far. We have to address this state seriously by ramping up our presence here," said chief executive officer of Dalmia Cement, Vipin Agarwal. He added that the Indian cement producer intends to become one of the top three producers in the state. Currently, the top three cement producers in Karnataka are UltraTech, Zuari and ACC. The company's market share through sales is about 5% from Karnataka, compared to about 14% each from Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Dalmia has three other cement plants in southern India, including two in Tamil Nadu (Dalmiapuram and Ariyalur) and one in Andhra Pradesh in Kadapa.