Monday, August 1 2005 14:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Wuxi (China): Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T), the Indian engineering and technology conglomerate today (August 1, 2005) announced its first manufacturing facility abroad in China with an investment of $11 million high-end switchgear in the eastern city of Wuxi.

L&T will establish a wholly owned foreign enterprise (WOFE) in the Wuxi New District, a national level hi-tech industrial park, in Jiangsu province to manufacture high-end Air Circuit Breakers.

L&T signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Wuxi New District for the establishment of the green-field manufacturing project.

"To be built on a 30,000 square meter plot, the factory with state-of-the-art facilities for manufacture and testing of low voltage switchgear. The Air Circuit Breaker is part of L&T's expansive range of electrical and electronic products," President and Member of the Board of L&T, R N Mukhija said.

"We intend to manufacture a range of products here in China. These Air Circuit Breakers of our own design evolved over the last 40 years," he said, assuring the Chinese that L&T products were among the best in the world.

The Chief Representative of L&T's Shanghai office, Rodney Pereira, who signed the MoU on behalf of Mukhija, who could not be present in Wuxi due to the cancellation of air services from Mumbai, noted that L&T has already opened representative offices in Beijing and Shanghai and views China as a key market for the company's global ambitions.