According to company sources, Rs 55 crore will be invested in the plant in Pen, Maharashtra, to increase capacity by 60,000 tonnes. The Rs 180 crore state-of-the-art Pen plant with a capacity of 93,000 tonnes was commissioned in late 1997.

The company will set up a Rs 15-crore new floor tile plant at Kunigal near Bangalore with a capacity of 15,000 tonnes. It will also launch Johnson Granito, the internationally preferred alternative to Italian marble.

H&R Hohnson (India), with a market share of 31 per cent in wall tiles and 20 per cent in the floor tiles segments, has a turnover of Rs 170 crore during 1997-98.

Johnson International, UK, has decided to source tiles from H&R Johnson (India) for the world market. These include wall tiles, floor tiles and fully vitrified tiles. The total order will be 2 million sq mvalued at Rs 40 crore.

Roy Hodgkinson, manufacturing technical director of Johnson International, UK said that these products would be sold in competitive European markets like Germany, France and Spain apart from the US and Australia. "Sourcing these products from India would give us the strategic advantage in Asia," he said.

The production at the Johnson Group is over 26 million sq m per annum. Of this H&R Johnson, India contributes 14 million sq m per annum which will increase to 19 million sq m with the proposed expansion plan.