Sunday, June 5 2005 10:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Arizona (USA): A big conference and leisure complex spread over 24 acres is to be set up on the outskirts of Delhi by Britain's Caparo Group at the cost of more than 100 crores.

The group Chairman Lord Swraj Paul said in Arizona that land for the complex had been acquired at Greater Noida. "We know a little about the hospitality industry having a few hotels in Britain, but as a group, I would say, a venture of this size is a new area for us," he said.

The London-based NRI industrialist, who was here for the opening of a $40 million steel plant of the group, also disclosed that Caparo is setting up an auto ancillary unit in Greater Noida, one of the four new such plants in India.

Caparo Group, he said, hopes to increase its business in India seven-fold to account for 35 per cent of the group's global turnover from less than five per cent at present.

India, which had focussed in the past on IT and service industry, can be very competitive in manufactured goods, Lord Paul said.

"At the moment our Indian business is very small. Not even five per cent of our current $1.3 billion, but we are hoping and what we will very much like to do is that the India business becomes almost one-third of the group's turnover," he said.

The Caparo group is also considering acquisitions in India and its turnover there is expected to rise to more than Rs 1,000 crores in 2008 from approximately Rs 150 crores at present.

Caparo CEO Angad Paul, who has been leading the expansion in India, said, "India is home and has got a better future because of its measured growth."

Since 1988, Caparo Group has expanded its tube making operations in the world's largest market, the US, with its revenues rising from less than $40 million to more than $400 million in 2004.