Resumen de India banks on ceramics
Industrial Minerals
[...]among the four major segments of the ceramics industry - tiles, sanitaryware, tableware and technical ceramics - the country holds a leading position in the first two, as the world’s second-largest producer of tiles and the third largest producer of sanitaryware. Anup Nair, operations manager at Gujarat-based raw materials supplier Futura Ceramics told Fastmarkets IM at the 2019 Indian Ceramics Asia event - held on February 27-March 1, at Gandhinagar, Gujarat - that the “availability of high-quality raw materials for the ceramics industry has become a key concern for ceramics producers in India, as quality consciousness among customers has risen significantly over a period of time. Virat Jain, executive assistant to the chief executive of the Ashapura Group of companies, a leading producer of industrial minerals such as kaolin and bentonite, told Fastmarkets IM: “We produce about 160,000 tonnes of high-grade kaolin in India [and the] ceramics industry is one of the leading consumers of kaolin for our company. Globally, the clustered approach - being grouped in relation to the availability of raw materials, the proximity to consumption markets or exports, availability of labor, logistics support and entrepreneurial talent - has enabled Italy, Spain and China to become ceramic tile manufacturing powerhouses. According to Indian government figures, since the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan programme started in October 2014, more than 90 million toilets have been installed across rural India alone, with more than 550,000 villages and 615 districts declared open-defection-free across 30 states and union territories. *The ‘organized’ sector comprises of producers who report their production numbers and sales figures.
