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by Kushani Ratnayake

Celtron, a manufacturer of computer Memory Modules at the Industrial Park at Pallekelle, Kandy plans to double its capacity within the next 12 months.

"The company plans to manufacture computer motherboards targeting the emerging markets under the FTA with India".

The company has already invested more than US$ 1.5 million during the last eight months to increase the capacity. "We plan to invest another one million dollars within the next six months," the Managing Director R.N. Patney told the Daily News in an interview.

The company based in the US was earlier known as Tandon. It was set up in USA in 1978 as a Floppy Head Company and later on headed for hard disk drives. In 1980, the Company went into manufacture floppy drives and Hard Disk Drives in Singapore.

Operations in India were started in 1980 and operations in Sri Lanka in 1996. Since 1996 the Company has invested more than US$ 10 Million. "At present the Celtron Group has around 9,500 employees of which 6,000 are in India, 3,000 in Sri Lanka and the others are based in the US, UK and Singapore. In India the company has factories in Free Trade Zones in Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai", Patney said.

The following are excerpts from the interview:

Question: What are the products you export at present?

Answer: From Sri Lanka we export Memory Modules, 64 MB, 128 MB, 256MB and 512 MB of capacity, both SDRAM and DDR versions. At present we export 12K modules daily and our target is to export 25,000 a day at the end of year 2003. We work three shifts a day.

Q: To which countries do you export?

A: We export our products directly to Singapore, UK, USA, India, Dubai, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Pakistan. From Singapore our products get distributed all over Asia, including Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. From UK our products get distributed all over Europe. We also send our products directly to our customers in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore in India.

Q: Being a US based company how do you find doing business in Sri Lanka?

A: Doing business in Sri Lanka is reasonably satisfactory.

Q: What are the plus points and constraints?

A: The plus points are that we do get a reasonably good labour force from areas in and around Kandy. The engineers are very intelligent and hard working but we wish that we could get more Electronics and software Engineers. The BOI, Customs and Banks are very efficient.

The biggest constraint we have in Sri Lanka is that there are too many holidays in this country. Another constraint is the power shortage. Public transport is also not adequately available and that is another constraint. Day to day operating costs are comparatively high due to providing transport to our employees and for running generators continuously for electricity and we need stable power but the CEB power is very unreliable.

Q: What is your market share in this industry?

A: Our market share is approximately one percent. We are able to sell what we produce. Our production is limited due to the lack of chips. We have to compete with giants such as Micron, Spektec, Hyundai, Samsung, Nanya, Hitachi, Hynex, Infeon and Kingston.

Q: Can you elaborate on your plans to increase the export volumes in one year?

A: We have already taken action to double our capacity within one year.

Q: How much will you invest?

A: We have already invested more than $1.5 million in the last eight months to increase our capacity and we plan to invest another one million dollars in the next six months.

Q: Do you find the FTA favourable to your industry?

A: Yes, it is very favourable.

Q: What are your future plans?

A: We have plans to manufacture computer Mother Boards in the future.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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