Toyo inaugurates plastic colourant factory in Dahej

Toyo Ink India (TIID), a member of the Toyo Ink Group, celebrated the opening of its new manufacturing facility for plastic colourants in a traditional Rajasthani ceremony held on the factory premises in Dahej in Gujarat. In attendance were Katsumi Kitagawa (group president and CEO) and Kotaro Yoshida (chairman and managing director, TIID), members of the fraternity among other Toyo executives from the India.

18 Apr 2018 | By Noel D'Cunha

According to a company spokesperson, "With an increasing customer base and for establishing plastic colourant foothold in India, it was imperative for TIID to expand its production base too. Thanks to the efforts of Toyoites, we were able to complete our plastic colourant factory within the stipulated timeframe of two years."

This factory has a production capacity of 1200 MT per annum. The factory will also produce masterbatches under Lioplex brand of the Toyo Group.

This is a remarkable achievement for Toyo Ink Group (TIG) as on 10 April 2016, Kitagawa had inaugurated the polymer factory. At that time, Kitagawa made an announcement of setting up the plastic colourant factory. "And so, thanks to two years of hard work and dedication, Toyo India managed to get this dream converted into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility."

With this plastic colourant factory, TIID has become one amongst many of the Toyo Ink Group companies to have all three central operating Companies viz. Toyo Ink, Toyo Chem and Toyo Color at one single location i.e. Dahej, Gujarat. This shows the kind of importance TIID has achieved in the Toyo Group within a decade of its founding in India. According to company sources, "The top management is very keen to make many more such investments in TIID."

Yusuke Onoda and Vikram Chauhan (manager, Plastic Colorants and Pigment Division, TIID) guided the audience and management team through the Plastic Colorant factory.

Yusuke Onoda led the "Kampai" (celebration in Japanese tradition) where Hirotsugu Yamaguchi thanked TIG, Toyo Ink Engineering and Toyoites for their dedication and support while setting up the factory. Yusuke Onoda said, "This was a challenging project, as we had to keep the promise made by Katsumi Kitagawa in 2016 whilst satisfying all parameters that an ideal plastic colourant factory should have."

The delegates were welcomed by Ravi Venkataraman (General Manager - HR, TIID). This VIPs included Katsumi Kitagawa (group president and CEO at Toyo Group), Ravi Kapoor (managing director, Heubach), Hirotsugu Yamaguchi (managing officer, Takenaka Corporation), Okaichi Hideki (vice president, Toyo Color), Ido Teruaki (director, Liochem USA), Kotaro Yoshida (chairman and managing director, TIID).

The inaugural ceremony was witnessed by senior management team of Toyo Ink India - Kenichi Tabuchi (CFO, TIID), KS Murthy (the director, TIID), Rahul Mehta (general manager - Plastic Colorants and Pigment Division, TIID), Kenji Ishii (Gujarat plant head, TIID), Prashant Atre (the managing director, Toyo Ink Arets India) along with delegates from Heubach Color, Takenaka Corporation and Innovative Engineers. Katsumi Kitagawa and Kotaro Yoshida then addressed the audience.