Hindustan National Glass Plans to Double Capacity

Hindustan National Glass & Industries Ltd., India’s largest maker of glass bottles and vials, plans to invest 25 billion rupees ($551 million) to double its production capacity in three years.

The company will set up a new manufacturing plant in Naidupeta in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, Joint Managing Director Mukul Somany said in New Delhi today. Hindustan National will also add a furnace to its facility at Nasik in western India. The new plant and equipment purchases will help raise production capacity to about 6,000 metric tons a day, Somany said.

Hindustan National is seeking to tap demand from the liquor and pharmaceutical industries as India grows at the highest rate among major economies after China. India’s drug market will grow at an annual rate of about 12 percent to $20 billion by 2015, according to a report by McKinsey & Co.

“The market is growing, and you have to time your capacity expansion,” Somany said. “We have to make sure there is product available, otherwise customers may be forced to shift to other packaging materials.”

Hindustan National’s new plant will start production by March 2012. The company is considering acquisitions in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, Somany said.

The bottle maker’s shares rose 1.7 percent to 264.3 rupees at the 3:30 p.m. close in Mumbai today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Malavika Sharma in New Delhi at msharma52@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sam Nagarajan at samnagarajan@bloomberg.net