Chemplast Sanmar to invest USD 300 mn in Egypt turnaround

Continuing last week’s drumbeat of investment stories: Chemplast Sanmar plans to investUSD 300 mn to “turn around” its Egyptian business, India’s LiveMint reports. “We are investing USD 300 mn in doubling our PVC capacity (in Egypt to 400k tonnes). One particular approval to build a pipeline did not come through and as a result our alternative approach was to make entire finished product there to cut our dependency on the pipeline,” the story quotes Sanmar Group Deputy Chairman Vijay Sankar as saying in an interview. The story then recaps the challenges Sanmar has faced in Egypt since its 2007 investment: “Egypt then was coming off 30 years of stable regime. Taxation was more progressive than in India and with project finance available, cost of production was low. Then all hell broke loose.” Sanmar is backed by leading Canadian investor Prem Watsa’s Fairfax (also a shareholder in CIB here in Egypt), the story notes, and is “betting on improving economic and political conditions in Egypt.”