Pradeep Bajoria, chief executive officer of IFGL, in Calcutta on Wednesday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, May 7: IFGL Refractories Ltd will set up its second manufacturing unit at the Kandla Special Economic Zone at an investment of Rs 50 crore. The unit will start operating from September next year.

The company has a manufacturing unit in Rourkela, Orissa.

“We have already acquired 8 acres at the Kandla SEZ. The unit will cater to the US and European markets,” said Pradeep Bajoria, director and chief executive officer of IFGL.

The company, which has clocked an export turnover of Rs 101 crore in 2007-08, will invest around Rs 20 crore in the Kandla project from internal accruals and borrow the remaining amount from banks and other financial institutions.

“We are setting up the unit in Kandla because the cost of shipment from west coast port is much lower than that from Calcutta. Moreover, we’ll also get several tax sops because it is an SEZ. A company located in an SEZ is also allowed to raise external commercial borrowings (ECB) of up to $500 million. ECBs cost lower than debts raised from domestic markets. So we can also save on interest,” Bajoria said.

IFGL is also planning for an acquisition abroad.

“We are planning to acquire a company that can introduce technologies and product lines to our portfolio. We have earmarked an investment of between 6 million euros and 10 million euros for this,” said Bajoria.

“There are opportunities available. However, we are looking for an entity which is owned by a family and does not want to expand to India or China,” he added.