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By Ravi Ladduwahetty

The Royal Ceramics Group which acquired the Interbatch production facility at Horana last year for Rs. 240 million has invested a further Rs. 260 million in factory expansion to double its production capacity from the previous volume of 1.2 million to 2.4 million units, the company's annual report said.

Royal Ceramics which has renamed the Interbatch facility as the Royal Porcelain (Pvt) Ltd has replaced the machinery and effected improvements to convert it into a the state of the art facility for the manufacture of porcelain tiles, (RCLL) Director/CEO Sarath Ganegoda told the Daily News in an interview.

He said that trials have been conducted at the new Horana factory complex in April and production has started. The target is around 100,000 square metres per month. It is around 50 percent now and we will be operating at full capacity soon, he said.

The company which exports its ceramic tiles to six countries-Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Western Samoa, will be exporting porcelain tiles to the United States and India under the Trade Agreements that Sri Lanka has with these two countries, Ganegoda said.

"RCLL has been exporting ceramic tiles to the United States in the past and it is not a totally new market. We are conducting negotiations to re-export the porcelain tiles to the US and also to India for which the potential is immense," Ganegoda said.

In order to upgrade product quality and improve designs, RCLL has also tied up with the world famous Iris Ceramica, the brand leader in Italy and Ferro-Spain of Spain to develop a series of new porcelain tiles which it hopes to export to new markets.

Ganegoda has also called upon the Government to introduce stringent anti-dumping laws aimed at creating a level playing field for the local manufacturer and also to combat the import of cheap and substandard products reaching the local market.

He said that some of the cheap imports were not in consonance with the basic quality standards such as slip resistance, surface hardness and water absorption. He proposed that the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) should set standards for these imported products.

" These products are not a threat to our products arriving in the domestic market but the consumer should be made aware of what they are buying. We are not advocating raising tariffs but the technical standards should be set for the betterment of the consumer," he said.

RCLL Chairman A.M. Weerasinghe has told shareholders in his annual report for the year ended March 31, 2002 that the company's performances for the period were impacted by the power crisis and the effects in the aftermath of the LTTE bomb attack at the Bandaranaike International Airport on July 24 and twin bomb attacks in New York and Washington.

These, he said, depressed the already suffering global and local export markets. The problems were further compounded with the low trend in the construction industry, especially in the context of large quantities of substandard imported tiles.

Production during the year under review had been marginally lower than the previous year due to labour unrest which remained for seven weeks, Weerasinghe has told shareholders.

The Board of Directors of Royal Ceramics Lanka Ltd comprises: A.M.Weerasinghe (Executive Chairman),F.P. De Alwis, D.L.B.C. Perera, M.T.L. Fernando, B.M. Amarasekera,S.C. Ganegoda, A.L. Karunanayake, R.B.Thambiayah and W.D.N.H. Perera. 

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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