Companies across industries are exploring growth opportunities via international expansion, and materials-focused businesses prove to be no exception.
Case in point: Toray Industries Inc. — a key materials production company servicing the footwear industry — said it acquired a business plot in India’s smart Sri City, located in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The space will serve as a new base for the firm’s local subsidiary, Toray Industries (India) Private Ltd.
The size of the location, according to a spokesperson for the firm, is approximately 350,000 square meters. Toray Group has positioned the spot as critical for its advanced materials business, and the spokesperson said the team aims to “aggressively invest management resources in it and utilize it as the global operation base in response primarily to the domestic demand in India, [while] targeting South Asia in various business fields where demand is also expected to expand.”
The facility is expected to begin operations in April 2020. According to the spokesperson, the Indian economy is an especially promising market, and it has been anticipated to grow at an annual rate of 6 percent through 2030.
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Fittingly, the spokesperson noted that global businesses in a variety of industries — from manufacturing fields such as automobile, home electric appliances and chemicals to the retail and financial sectors, for example — are turning their eyes to the country.
The company said worldwide expansion is a key theme at Toray Industries, and the organization will continue to strengthen “the organic collaboration” among its bases outside of Japan and focus on new market expansion.
Tatsuya Bessho, manager of corporate communications, explained the team’s real estate choice. “We have been searching for new business sites in India for several years,” Bessho said. “After comprehensive comparative examination of location, land price, infrastructure development situation, labor force securing and incentives from local governments, we have judged the [Sri City land] to be optimum.”
The manager added that the Andhra Pradesh government, specifically, was eager to attract foreign companies, leading to an ideal meeting of interests. “India is a promising market, [with] the second-largest population in the world, accompanying economic growth,” Bessho said, expressing why the team had chosen to focus on real estate there.
“Toray Group has a policy, ‘local production, local consumption,’ [which] means we supply our products from the most ideal location,” Bessho said. “Under this policy, we have decided to supply our materials in India in order to expand the market share and strengthen our position as [a No. 1 supplier].”
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