Kalmar eyes further growth in India

GTI is a joint venture between APM Terminals and Container Corporation (Concor) of India. The five-year deal requires Kalmar to supply it with preventative and breakdown maintenance, engineering support and daily inspections, together with equipment operators and spare parts. Kalmar plans to provide more than 100 maintenance specialists and operators, trained to meet international standards. They will work three shifts per day, providing a 24-hour service for the RTG fleet.

“As a new terminal, we wanted a partner we could trust to help achieve our productivity goals. Kalmar’s service experience and professionalism assured us that our required level of quality would be met,” said a spokesman for GTI.

Faced with increasing business volumes and demand from local customers, Kalmar set up an Indian subsidiary at the end of 2005 by acquiring a 51% stake in Indlift, which had been the agent for Kalmar products since 2000. It plans to expand the company’s sales and service network to include port cities such as Chennai, Cochin and Kolkata, and to employ more technicians. The company’s workforce has already significantly increased, with 20 office-based employees, 20 service engineers and a further 125 sub-contracted engineers operating around the country.