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GKB Opthalmics to join SEZ in Goa Wednesday, 08 June , 2005, 16:09
Panaji: GKB Ophalmics limited, a Goa-based 100 per cent export oriented company manufacturing prescription glasses, is ready to participate in the proposed 'Special Economic Zone'(SEZ) to be set up in the state to boost economic growth.
According to the company's Chief Executive Officer K G Gupta, the facility to manufacture high quality television lenses for electronics giant Sony of Japan, along with another unit for mass production of scratch-resistant plastic lenses would be located in the SEZ.
The company has also announced a strategic collaboration with Corning India Private Ltd, for marketing and distribution of its products to opticians, wholesalers, dealers and distributors in India.
Currently, the US-based Corning Ltd buys back all the products of the GKB Opthalmics by supplying raw material and in turn sells the products in markets abroad including the US, Europe, Australia and Africa.
Prime Opthalmic Products Ltd a sister company of GKB Opthalmics, has three modern laborories located in Noida, Chennai and Kolkata, offering end to end services and support to opticians by ensuring deliveries of international quality prescription lenses.
The company had also introduced 'TARAL', a new design of progressive lens (a multi-focal lens without any line) for the domestic market. The progressive lens is priced ten times lesser than imported lenses. It is seen as a substitute to the traditional bifocal lens for the middle class Indian consumer.
With the domestic market registering 20 per cent growth and demand growing abroad, the company's sales are expected to touch Rs 85 crore including exports for the current fiscal as against Rs 57 crores it made last fiscal.
The domestic sales last year accounted for Rs 7 crores and it was expected to jump to Rs 12 crores this fiscal. Almost 80 per cent of the lens market was in the small scale, handmade and unorganised sector supplying sub-standard material with no control over the mechanism.
At the same time, the sale of plastic lenses with all its advantages of low weight is yet to pick up in India where glass lenses account for 85 per cent of the market as against 50 per cent abroad.
With highly scratch resistant and protective plastic lenses now being introduced into the market by the company, the market is expected to pick up. The usage of plastic lenses is about 20 per cent in the US.
Though the domestic market is growing at a steady pace, imports from China and Korea is posing a serious threat to the Indian manufacturers in the organised sector
