Reliance plans $24 bn investment in petrochemicals

DUBAI: Reliance Industries, India's largest company by market value, plans to spend $24 billion over the next ten years in setting up petrochemicals projects in the Middle East, company Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani is reported to have said.

"We plan to set up a number of petrochemical plants in the next decade, with each costing $4-6 billion," the Dubai-based Gulf News quoted Ambani as saying.

Ambani had yesterday told a conference here that building five billion dollar petrochemicals plants in the Middle East will be the best way for Reliance, India's biggest producer of chemicals, to meet India's quadrupling demand of chemicals in the next 10 years.

Reliance wants to tap the growing demand for chemicals in Asia, especially in China and India.

"Dubai will be the gateway to our future investment in this part of the world and beyond," Gulf News quoted Ambani as saying. "We will increase our headcount in Dubai, which will be the nerve centre of our international operations."

Ambani, who had yesterday at the petrochemical conference said that Reliance would aggressively pursue acquisitions as part of a new strategy to grow, told Gulf News his company was not yet ready for big-ticket acquisitions.

"We will need to grow and invest in our own expansion for at least 10 more years, before entering into big-time acquisitions," he was quoted as saying.