Finnish energy major Moventas to set up base in India

"India is an important market for us; therefore we have decided to improve our customer relations in the country. We have started the registration process to have our own Moventas entity in India," Olli Valimaki, senior vice president of Moventas, told a visiting IANS correspondent.

Moventas is enthused with India's speedy recovery from the economic crisis and considers it a better market than Europe and America. "India recovered much faster from the global meltdown than Western countries. They are having difficult times in the installation of wind energy projects," said Valimaki.

"In the West, finances in the wind energy market are by public institutions. However, since (the economic) crisis they have become extremely careful and want to invest only in foolproof projects. They do not want to take any risk and that is why western countries are lagging behind. But India has already recovered and this market is speeding up," he said.

"The location of our company will be at Chennai because most of the windmill customers are based in southern India. Now we are into the process of selecting an Indian as head of sales and customer services. We are expecting that our base will be set up by May or June or before the middle of this year."

Valimaki said the name of the Indian entity will be Moventas India Private Limited. "We are expecting a business of three million euros volume in a year from there," he said.
A Moventas delegation is also coming to India to take part in 'Wind Power India- 2011' exhibition and seminar at Chennai during April 7-9. "So far we have been serving our Indian clients from Finland and they have been requesting us to come to India. Moreover, this is the only way to relate to local people. The Indian market is growing very fast. The overall world market of wind power energy is expected to grow by 680 percent between the period of 2008 to 2018," said Valimaki.

However, Valimaki refused to divulge the name of the Indian company with which Moventas  is planning to tie up to start its local operations. "Our negotiations are going on and they are almost at the final stage. Right now I cannot disclose the name. We would start with only sales, services and technical support from India office. So far no decision has been taken regarding local manufacturing," stated Valimaki.

"Right now it would be only for local operations, at least for the first two-threeyears," he said. According to Moventas officials, around 200,000 windmills are currently operating globally. Around 15 top utility companies represent half of the base of the wind energy market and all of them are in Moventas' portfolio. The remaining half is represented by small businesses, family enterprises and farmers.

Moventas services include concept designing, engineering, testing, production, maintenance and modernisation of existing units. The company had a revenue of 237 million euros in 2009.