22.6.08

Reliance Infrastructure has BIG Plans

Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, a power generator controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani, plans to invest $7 billion (Rs30,030 crore) in the next three years to expand its engineering and construction business in India and acquire assets overseas.The company, formerly called Reliance Energy Ltd, will borrow as much as 80% of the funds, director Lalit Jalan said.The investments will be separate from the $28 billion that its 45%-owned unit Reliance Power Ltd plans to spend on adding capacity in India in five years. Chairman Anil Ambani changed the company’s name in May to reflect the widened scope of its business to include roads and airports as India spends $500 billion to improve infrastructure by 2012. Reliance Infrastructure, which has started a Shanghai office, expects to unveil a venture in China in the next two months and aims to develop a global business, Jalan said.Reliance Infrastructure seeks to partner Chinese companies for a technology, services or production venture.Dongfang Electric Corp. Ltd, which supplies about 40% of China’s hydropower equipment, and Shanghai Electric Group Co. Ltd, China’s biggest maker of power equipment, are among suppliers for Ambani’s power projects.
The company’s Reliance Power unit may form ventures with makers of turbines, boilers and transformers, Ambani had said in January.Reliance Infrastructure will continue to partner overseas companies for its engineering and construction projects in India. About 1,500 engineers were hired this year and a similar number may be added in each of the next three years to help the company meet its targets.A dozen managers have been hired from overseas to bring best practices from international firms.The Union government is increasing spending on infrastructure to ease congestion at ports and roads and power shortages that it estimates shave 2 percentage points off the country’s growth, the second fastest among major economies.
Reliance Infrastructure is building a rail system to connect New Delhi’s airport to the city in partnership with Spain’s Construcciones and Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles SA. It is building a 12km stretch of a metro rail project in Mumbai with a French firm Veolia Transport, a unit of Veolia Environment SA.The company has jointly bid with Canada’s Bombardier Inc., the world’s second largest train maker, to build a 67km elevated rail corridor in Hyderabad.

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