For the first time Metso organized it’s Customer Days in India. The 27th Metso Pulp and Paper Customer Days 2010 were held in Chennai. The event was started with the welcome address of Mr. N.K. Jain, Director (Sales), Metso Paper India, highlighting the India’s growth story and Metso’s role in that. Mr Bertel Langenskiold, President, Paper and Fibre Technology – Metso, said: India, one of the fastest growing markets for pulp and paper, is important for Metso’s growth. It will expand its products and services across all its areas of operations.
Mr Langenskiold said, “I would guess that the next major investment would relate to service side for pulp & paper and mining industry. I cannot say any numbers on how much, but it has to match the growth planned.” Metso is confident that its growth in these areas in India will exceed the industry growth rate of about 7 per cent.
Mr. M.F. Farooqui, Chief Guest of the event started his speech by saying “Paper industry can be a big source of maintaining the ecosystem rather than a mere user of ecosystem or someone who leads to depletion of the ecosystem”.
Mr. Farooqui stressed on the phenomenal growth potential in India and said, “According to Goldman Sachs report India will be one of few countries who will continue to grow at more than 5% rate in terms of GDP at constant prices every year till 2050. India will be the second largest economy after China in the world together with the US. So this is the potential of this market”.
Mr. Pradeep Dhobale, Chief Executive, ITC – PSPD, scanned the industry and highlighted the challenges for Indian Paper Industry and the role Metso can play in facing these challenges. In his dialogue Mr. Dhobale said, “Conversion efficiency of paper industry is just 0.8%. To produce 1 ton of paper 124 tons of input is required which includes lot of water, fibre, coal, chemicals and other inputs. Lesser the input we use, better will be the efficiency. For entire paper making process we need to make improvements and this is where Metso can contribute. Few expectations of the industry from Metso said by Mr. Dhobale included:-
• Best possible yield from the fibrelines.
• Technology to handle lower quality of waste paper.
• Comparatively small scale machines suitable for the Indian conditions could be made more energy efficient.
• Help in dealing with the colour of the effluent.
• Substantial contribution in talent management.
• Offering good rebuilds for the second hand paper machines.
• Technology to make good quality paper from pre-matured trees or less age trees.
• Indigenization of hardware’s & components facilities for better service & cost control
Mr. Dhobale concluded by saying, “Breakthrough is required in the paper industry like telecom industry. The cost of one call from mobile phone in 1995 was Rs. 20/- per minute. By 2004 it has come down to Rs. 2/- per minute and now it is Rs. 0.5/-. Can similar multi-fold cost reduction take place in paper manufacturing?”
