Alar-Impex’s chief to help Indian exporters to access European mkt

Ashok B Sharma

New Delhi, Dec 2: Chairman of Alar-Impex group of companies Alok N Sinha has said our mission is to help Indian exporters by providing all sorts of logistic support to gain market access in Europe said.

Mr Sinha, who has recently been knighted with the prestigious award ‘The Officer of the Crown of Belgium’ and ’Crown Meda’l by the country’s Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt for attracting Belgium investment in India, said that his company had tied-up with the Antwerp-based Transmarcum NV for providing warehousing and multi-modal facilities to Indian goods being exported to European market.

Already commodities like agro-chemicals, seafood and textiles are finding their way into the transmarcum warehousing facility at Antwerp. Antwerp is strategically placed to cover west European markets.

Indian exporters of perishable products like fresh fruits and vegetables, processed foods, floriculture can utilise this facility for gaining access to the European market. Holland is an international centre for auction of floriculture and Indian exporters can use the warehousing facility at Antwerp, he said.

Speaking to The Financial Express about the award presented to him by the Belgium government, Mr Sinha said that it was in recognition for his effort to attract Belgium investment in India, particularly in the port sector. He said port is an important sector for aiding exports. There is a lot of traffic congestion at Indian ports due to silting. With a view to take up dredging activities at Indian ports, Alar-Impex in collaboration with Dredging International NV of Belgium launched the Indian subsidiary, Dredging International (India) Pvt Ltd. Dredging International has an annual turnover of 3,500 Belgium Franc and is the second largest dredging and offshore marine contracting firm in the world.

Mr Sinha said that the Indian subsidiary had taken up dredging and reclamation project on behalf of Indian Oil Corporation at Paradeep at a contract of Rs 400 crore. The dredging is being done in partnership with a Dutch firm, Boscalis. The project is being completed in well in time by December, this year. It has taken up another project for Indian Navy at Karwar in Karnataka in collaboration with Larsan & Turbo, Ballast Nedam, Holland and Hothief, Germany. This project is expected to be completed by middle of 2003. Mr Sinha said that the Dredging International (India) would soon take up bids for JNPT, Mumbai, Calcutta port and other major and minor ports of the country.