CHEMICAL products maker Hextar Chemicals Sdn Bhd has teamed up with India's Unitop Chemicals Pte Ltd to expand its product range and to widen worldwide customer and industry market reach. They will have equal ownership of Hextar Unitop Sdn Bhd, which will make specialty chemicals for the agriculture, oil and gas, textile and personal care products industries.

Hextar executive director Eddie Ong Choo Meng said the partnership is a natural upstream expansion for the firm's global business which is already present in 13 countries.

Unitop managing director B.D. Shetty said the alliance will be a platform for their first overseas venture. It wants to find a foothold in the fast growing economy of Southeast Asian countries including China and Australia.

"We will build a RM10 million plant in Pulau Indah, Port Klang in two years and export our products to 17 countries especially targeting China.

"The plant will bring a revenue of RM50 million in its fifth year of operations," Ong told reporters in Selangor yesterday after the companies inked their cooperation, witnessed by International Trade and Industry Ministry Parliamentary Secretary Datin Paduka Dr Tan Yee Kew and Sanjay Panda, the Economic Counsellor of the High Commission of India in Malaysia.

Shetty said the plant will have a capacity of 6,000 tonnes a year on a single shift basis for 300 working days. It will run at half of its capacity in its first year and hit full capacity in the fifth year. At full capacity, it would chalk up a revenue of RM50 million.

Mumbai-based Unitop meanwhile is a small and medium scale enterprise company turning an annual revenue of US$25 million (RM81 million) last year.

It specialises in specialty chemicals used in oilfields, paper and personal products care industry.

Hextar Chemicals is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hextar Holdings Bhd, a firm that was headed for a listing on the second board in June last year. That plan was scrapped due to tax matters that had to be resolved, company officials say.

Ong said this time the company plans to float its shares on the main board of Bursa Malaysia as its factory capacity has met the minimum requirements. He however did not specify any time frame.