Parquet Ceylon Ltd, a subsidiary of Lanka Walltile PLC (LWL) under the CT Group, is planning a hyper market for building material at its 6-acre land at Balummahara (past Kadawatha), officials said.
“This is a prime location to purchase tiles at a discounted rate. We’re planning to spruce it up and build a facility for a hyper market where we can sell aluminium, grout, mortar, and all other construction related products,” an official told the Business Times.
He said that last year the company, which was initially a flooring product company, bought 62% of Ceykor Aluminium Industries for Rs. 100 million in a bid to diversify into construction related materials. He added that Parquet finds this to be a good opportunity as aluminium is now used more and more in the construction industry. He said with this new acquisition in place, Parquet is eyeing more innovative construction solutions with Korean and European collaboration. He said that last year Parquet exited its timber flooring business and now the focus is more on new products.
“We want to come up with new aluminium profiles, which are not marketed in the country,” he noted, adding that Parquet invested some Rs. 100 million into this aluminium factory and from this year it should breakeven. “We’ll be marketing the products of this firm under the ‘Swiss Tech’ brand, which is owned by Parquet,” he added.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Planning, construction-related projects worth over Rs 700 billion is planned for 2010-2012 where construction and related firms will see a boom. Analysts estimated that the construction projects worth a similar amount will be initiated by the private or the informal sector. "The construction sector growth may surpass the expected growth in GDP of 7-8% over the next five years," an analyst said. |
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