Coinciding with a recent visit by Egypt’s president in Delhi / India, TCI Sanmar Chemicals, a subsidiary of the Sanmar Group (Chennai / India; www.sanmargroup.com) and the government of Egypt have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to establish a plastic park at Port Said, Egypt, home to TCI.

The land for the park will be allotted by the city government. In addition to developing infrastructure facilities, TCI Sanmar will provide technical and commercial expertise to all small and mid-size companies with an interest to participate in development of the plastic park. The goal for the site is to produce downstream products such as PVC pipes, profiles and calendars using PVC as the raw material. The park will have all infrastructure facilities including roads, lighting, common waste-treatment facilities.

The park appears to be yet another component of the Sanmar Group's overall strategy to have a strong presence in Egypt. In 2007 the South Indian chemicals, engineering technology and shipping giant acquired Trust Chemical Industries, and renamed it TCI Sanmar Chemicals. Three years later, in 2010, the company was busy constructing its PVC complex in Port Said - see Plasteurope.com from 23.09.2011

Since then, according to an online press release, it has become the largest Indian investor in the Egyptian chemicals market, the country's largest caustic soda manufacturer and largest PVC manufacturer – with a capacity of 200,000 t/y in Port Said, Polyglobe (www.polyglobe.net) says.

No financial details were provided, nor were any dates given for when the park will be ready to begin operation. However, a related story on the Port Said site from August 2012 in the "Times of India", a major English-speaking daily, stated that TCI was planning to raise USD 300m to expand its PVC production facility in Port Saidby additional 200,000 t/y in 2013 following some hiccups brought about by the political uprisings or 'Arab Spring', which had forced the Sanmar Group to scale back its Egyptian strategy.