In an effort to encourage sales of bathroom and kitchen mountings in India, Kludi-RAK (Ras al-Khaimah / United Arab Emirates; www.kludirak.com) has founded a subsidiary in Mumbai. The new company is supposed to occupy 10% of the market by 2015, said Janusz Palarczyk, the managing director of Kludi-RAK, which itself is a joint venture between German mountings manufacturer Kludi (Menden; www.kludi.de) and sanitary ceramics and tile manufacturer RAK Ceramics (Ras al-Khaimah / UAE; www.rakceramics.com).

Kludi-RAK’s 300 employees supply the entire region, including the Persian Gulf states, North Africa, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, with mountings. Many of the vendor parts, among them injection moulded plastics components or mixing elements, actually were produced in Europe, including at Kludi’s main production plant in Menden.

Establishing a jv in India comes at much less risk than entering such a vast market alone, said Kludi CEO Gerald Ecke. Aside from Germany, the mountings manufacturer also operates plants in Austria, Hungary, Poland, China and the UAE, with a global workforce of more than 1,000. At its main plant in Menden, Kludi each year processes some 350 t of plastics, including ABS, POM, PC and PP. The German company last saw revenues of about EUR 100m.