TCL, which entered the Indian market by importing TV sets from China six years back, expects to notch up sales by over 40% this year, from the 6,00,000 sets sold in 2005. With projected sales for 2007 in the region of 1.3 mn sets the Co hopes the new factories will be able to meet the requirements.

Work on the factories will commence next year, with a professional team already in place to work out the details in terms of locations for the factories and the total investments required.

TCL has plants in Thailand, Poland and Mexico besides owing the RCA brand in the United States, and Thomson, which it bought three years back, in Europe.

TCL’s main aim in setting up plants in India is to localise the product, save cost and build the brand in order to ensure greater penetration. While the units will initially cater to local demands some of the production might be shipped to neighbouring countries, depending on the demand.

Once the factories are in place, the Company also expects to set up a vast distribution and customer service network in India.

Goldman Sachs’ Bangalore office is likely to increase its head count making it the Company’s third largest office, overtaking Tokyo.

While the move underlines the need for security firms to trim compensation costs, it also highlights the growing Indian talent pool that is capable of performing everything from information technology support to sophisticated analytic research.

The Bangalore office currently has 1200 employees and will soon overtake Tokyo where the current headcount is 1500, with New York and London in the higher slots.

The Company’s Bangalore staff comprises software designers, transaction processing staff and highly skilled analysts capable of producing modeling and other data for research reports.

The Videocon group intends to set up nine special economic zones (SEZs) in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat and Karnataka. All of these SEZs will be multi service zones, which will export consumer durables, semi conductors and auto ancillaries. Spread across a total area of over 12,000 acres, the group expects exports from these SEZs to touch Rs 4000 crore by 2010. 

The company will soon enter into an MoU with the Maharashtra government to set up SEZs in Pune on 3,000 acres of land and another one in Aurangabad on 6,600 acres. There are 5 SEZs planned for West Bengal, the total area amounting to over 2,300 acres. The remaining two SEZs are likely to come up in Gandhinagar in Gujarat and Karnataka.

Videocon has earmarked US$ 400 mn for the Maharashtra SEZs, which could go up to US $ 5 bn. While Videocon Reality Infrastructure, an unlisted entity, will chip in the bulk of investment, Videocon Industries- the Group's flagship entity- will invest the initial US $ 10 mn and will have the right to purchase the entire equity at par within next five years. The State government's investment in these zones will be capped at 26%. Videocon is also in talks with foreign investors for developing infrastructure and investing in SEZs.

Videocon has already appointed JM Morgan Stanley as advisor to develop strategies in setting up infrastructure projects for the group across the country. It has started recruiting people from the  UAE and China to meet the human resource requirement of its SEZ projects.

Reliance Life Sciences (RLS) recently started contract manufacturing and contract research services to address the products discovery and development needs of the biopharmaceuticals industry.

The Company is in the process of finalising few contract manufacturing deals with MNC biotechnology firms. The range of its services include bioassay development, process development, analytical testing to clinical lot and commercial batch manufacture.

RLS has also started to market five of its plasma protein products in the Indian market- Albu Rel (plasma volume expander) Reli Feal (biological glue for neurosurgery, Reli Plasma (anti-viral) and Immuno Rel and Reli Cord (stem cell enricher). The Company is currently in the process of developing other plasma proteins, recombinant proteins and still other novel proteins, intending to tap the $52 bn global biotechnology market.

Company sources revealed that the research molecules were in different stage of development, with some molecules already being subject ton clinical trials. RLS is also planning to start working on cell base therapies in the new year.

Stressing on RLS’s belief in the future of biotechnology, Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Group chairman said, “I believe that the twentieth century was the century of physics and chemistry. The twenty first century is the century of biology. We, at Reliance, have taken concrete measures to explore this exciting area.”

Reflecting this belief, RLS has presence across all biopharmaceutical segments, biofuels and bio-clinical services and is engaged in research and development initiatives in the field of medical, plant and industrial biotechnology.

RLS’s entry into the contract manufacturing and contract research space comes at a time when the entire Indian biotechnology industry is gaining momentum.