The current capacity on a single shift
basis is 18,000 tons.
According to Kansai’s estimates, what is
the current size of the Middel East coatings
market?
Though estimates vary, based on publicly
available information, the size of the
market is currently in excess of $3 billion.
What is Kansai’s market share in the region
and what are your growth projections for the
future?
Kansai is a new entrant, having
established its window company,
Kansai Paint Middle East, in early
2008. Therefore our share is quite
modest at this stage. However, given
the strength of the Kansai product
portfolio, the company expects to
achieve a double-digit share of the
market within the next ten years.
An interior view of Kansai Paints’ new plant in Iran, which will manufacture coatings for
the automotive and industrial coatings markets within Iran and central Asia.
What are Kansai’s goals for the new plant
and in the Middle East region as a whole?
market have led to the growth of various infrastructure and industrial segments, which in turn has driven
growth of the paint and coatings sector
in these countries.
Kansai has set-up two new plants since
the establishment of Kansai Paint
Middle East and intends to construct
an additional seven plants over the
course of the next few years. The number plants, their size and scope will of
course depend on the emerging opportunities and Kansai’s ability to penetrate each market and build scale.
government support. Moreover, in terms
of geography, China and India were
Kansai’s main markets outside Japan
and these did not suffer for too long;
these markets are booming across all
segments.
What can we expect moving through the next
few quarters from Kansai Paint? Describe the
firm’s strategy for navigating these turbulent
times?
How would you characterize the Middle East
paint and coatings industry and how does it
differ from other regions?
Kansai is maintaining its growth oriented mind-set in terms of its strategy and plan while being particularly
cautious with respect to costs.
Where can we expect to see future investment?
The Middle East, Africa and Central
Asia region is in a sense an emerging
market as opposed to the mature markets of Japan, Asean, Europe and
North America. Moving a step ahead of
the vertical integration of the oil and
gas industries and the petrochemical
sector, which has direct synergies with
the natural resource availability in the
region, many economies are building
infrastructure for new industries such
as light manufacturing, tourism, financial services and sophisticated global
trading hubs. The economic boom, and
subsequent changes happening in the
How would you characterize the state of
the coatings industry as a whole?
The global coatings industry has been
consolidating through mergers and
acquisitions over the last five years.
Moreover, there is an increased
requirement for developing not only
environmentally friendly products but
coatings for new emerging applications,
leading to the need for fairly significant
investments in research and development. Secondly, volume has become
important in securing raw materials at
globally competitive prices. Thus, scale
is becoming essential for long term sustainability. Until 2006, no global company enjoyed a market share exceeding
seven percent; with the acquisition of
ICI by AkzoNobel and of Sigma by PPG
the measure has changed.
The next few investments are expected to
be in China, India, The Middle East and
Africa. Kansai has already announced an
approximately $100 million investment
in India. CW
Is Kansai’s business rebounding after the
recession?
Kansai was able to come out of the economic crisis fairly quickly since its mainstay in term of segments was automotive, which was able to garner significant
Shoju Kobayashi
Chairman
Kansai Paint
