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Washington, D.C., December 11, 2002
—The International Finance Corporation (IFC)—the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group—will provide financing to Apollo Tyres Limited (Apollo), one of India’s leading manufacturers of automotive tires. Apollo is a market leader in the truck and bus replacement tire market, the largest segment of the tire market by value in India.
IFC is providing a US$35 million loan to Apollo, of which $20 million is for IFC’s own account and the remaining $15 million for the account of participating banks. In support of the company’s $51 million investment plan for the next two years, the financing will help establish a radial tire manufacturing facility at Vadodara in Gujarat. It will also help de-bottleneck and balance operations to increase capacity utilization at its Perambra and Kalamassery plants, near Cochin in Kerala. This project will help Apollo introduce the next generation of tires for trucks and buses in India, which would eventually lead to a safer and more fuel- efficient road transport.
Mr. Onkar Singh Kanwar, chairman of Apollo Tyres said, “We at Apollo Tyres are proud to be the first Indian Tyre manufacturer to receive IFC’s direct support. This is a testament to our pioneering efforts in introducing state-of-the-art radial technology in the truck tyre segment. With this long-term partnership with IFC, we hope to further our existing international standards in corporate governance, best environmental practices, and corporate social responsibility.”
Mr. Dimitris Tsitsiragos, IFC director for South Asia, added, “We appreciate Apollo’s leadership position in the Indian tire market and support its initiative to provide better quality products to customers. IFC has worked with Apollo Tyres to help it benchmark against global best practices in corporate governance and social and environmental responsibility. This project demonstrates our commitment to support Indian companies that are upgrading technology and modernizing to become internationally competitive.”
The mission of IFC (
www.ifc.org
), part of the World Bank Group (
www.worldbank.org
), is to promote sustainable private sector investment in developing countries, helping to reduce poverty and improve people’s lives. IFC finances private sector investments in the developing world, mobilizes capital in the international financial markets, and provides technical assistance and advice to governments and businesses. Since its founding in 1956 through FY 2002, IFC has committed more than $34 billion of its own funds and arranged $21 billion in syndications for 2,825 companies in 140 developing countries. IFC’s worldwide committed portfolio as of FY02 was $15.1 billion for its own account and $6.5 billion held for participants in loan syndications.
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