Speaking to The Financial Express, vice-chairman and managing director R Parthasarathy said that in due course these chemicals would contribute to 30 per cent of the company's turnover. Some of these products were to have been launched in the last fiscal but the company was busy streamlining its expansion of PAN capacity here and for the new plant manufacturing MAN in Malaysia. It was also searching for new markets then.

With TCL Malaysia performing well against expectations (the company which was expected to make a loss in the first year notched profits of Rs 6.8 crore on a turnover of Rs 70 crore) and with the demand slowly stabilising in PAN, TCL is now ready to focus on the new products.

A number of downstream products of PAN which finds applications in paint and epoxy resin industries areto be introduced in January 2000. These are tetra hydro phthalic anhydride, hexa hydro phthalic anhydride, methyl tetra phthalic anhydride and methyl hexahydro phthalic anhydride. The company has tied up with Ciba Speciality Chemicals for supply of the hardeners to the new joint venture of the latter, Petro Araldite. From MAN the company is making malic acid and fumaric acid. The focus this year will be on marketing of these new products as also getting approvals. So the company does not expect any significant additions to turnover, Parthasarathy said. However the next year, which will see a consolidation of new product lines will also see TCL having a cash surplus as Rs 26 crore of project debt is being paid off in the current year. Sales for the quarter ended June 30 1999 was Rs 64.91 crore and net profit Rs 4.94 crore.