FHM Humayan Kabir

Leading conglomerate Pran-RFL Group is investing Tk 2.60 billion in new beverage and packaging facilities to raise its stake in the country's fast growing soft drinks and juice market, its deputy chief said Saturday.

Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, the deputy managing director of the fast expanding group, said the new investment is the largest by the company and it would make Pran-RFL the country's leading player in beverage, liquid glucose and mineral water.

"It would be a separate subsidiary of the company called Mymensingh Agro Limited once its goes into production from late 2010," Chowdhury told the FE.

"We are investing Tk 2.60 billion in the new venture. The money is being spent on setting up new beverage plant, liquid glucose, mineral water and a new packaging material plants," he said.

Chowdhury said the company has already started construction work of the new plants on four acres of land at Kaliganj in Mymensingh.

Pran-RFL Group is one of the country's most diversified conglomerates with interests ranging from agro-processing, food, beverages, plastics, spices, tube-wells and pumps.

The company takes pride in as the country's pioneering agro-processed food exporter, shipping in soft-drinks, mango juice, spices and aromatic rice to 70 countries including India, the Middle East, Northern and Eastern Africa and some ethnic Bangladeshi markets in the West.

Chowdhury, the group's young second-in-command, said the new venture is being fast-tracked as the company has been swamped by increased demand for a range of products including soft-drinks, juices and mineral water.

"Demand for our products has been growing double digit every year. Pran brands are now available in every nook and cranny of the country. And the consumers have accepted them," he said.

"We are also getting increased export orders for our beverage products," he said.

The new plants would produce 14 million bottles of juice, 15 million bottles of soft-drinks, 17 million kilogram of liquid glucose, 3.5 million kgs of flexible packaging materials and 0.2 million square metre of cartons, the company's marketing director Kamruzzaman Kamal said.

The Pran-FFL Group had an annual turnover of nearly Tk 7.5 billion last year. It exported processed food worth Tk 1.50 billion during the same period.

The company has three other plants in Ghorasal in Brahmanbaria, Palash in Narshingdi and Natore where it processes food, spices, and rice and produces dairy items, juice and beverages.

The group was born in 1980 and now has 10 subsidiaries, employing more than 15,000 workers. It has emerged as the largest processors of fruits and vegetables in Bangladesh.