Good Afternoon and Welcome to

Mr. Siebert Consul General of Germany in Mumbai,

Mr. Duebet, Dy Director General IGCC,

Mr. Kniffki, Mr. Loesch, Mr. Fankhauser,

Distinguished guests… Media friends…Ladies and gentlemen.

I thank all of you for accepting our invitation, especially those who

come from far away and have travelled for many hours to be present,

to herald the arrival of LEONI Cable into India. Today we have guests in

attendance from all over India, various European and Asian countries.

Opening of this factory is an event full of joy and emotion. Together

with my colleagues from LEONI Germany, Switzerland, Turkey,

Singapore and India, I welcome you for joining us in this inauguration.

What a great pleasure it is to be here with you today.

Nowadays Pune is known as the Oxford of the East, a source of

educated and dedicated employees which has made it a leading centre

for high class engineering companies. To understand how this ethos

was created we have to go back a millennium and study the

background of the historical leaders that shaped the culture of Pune. I

will now briefly touch upon only three such personalities.

Gyaneshawar was born in 1275 AD and was orphaned at the age of 8.

He begged for alms to survive, faced ostracism and struggled to

educate himself. He overcame the debilitating circumstances and by

the age of 12 he had mastered philosophy. By the age of 15 he wrote

his famous work Dyaneshwari. At the age of 21 and the peak of his life

he attained Mahasamadhi and gave up his life. His Samadhi is at Alandi

which is 18 km from here on the way to Pune.

Tukaram was born in 1608 AD in a family of merchant farmers of Dehu

near Pune. He helplessly watched his family members die of starvation

in the famines of 1629-31. He suffered greatly and lost all his property.

He had no formal education, through his own efforts, creativity and

genius wrote about 8,000 poems. Local elite opposed him and threw

his books into river Indrayani, only 5 kilometers south of Chakan. He

fasted for 13 days and miracle happened – his books resurfaced intact.

He is not only regarded as the greatest Marathi poet but also a social

reformer. At the age of 41 he sang his farewell song and vanished. He

was never seen again.

Third personality is linked to the historic event of 4th Jan 1670. On this

night Shivaji the great Maratha warrior, instructed Tanaji to capture

the Sinhagad fort which is located on South-West of Pune City. Tanaji

tied a rope to a monitor lizard and used it to climb the vertical cliff

walls and enter the fort. After climbing the walls the return ropes of

soldiers were cut. A do or die battle ensued and Tanaji’s troops

achieved resounding victory. In the process Tanaji died. He has

become the embodiment of supreme sacrifice, selfless bravery and

dedicated spirit that will not give up till the goal is achieved.

These beacons inspired generations of Puneites. It showed that with

determination, dedication and persistence, difficult situations can be

overcome and impossible tasks can be accomplished. This has become

the ethos of Pune.

While Pune was evolving its ethos, in 1569 Anthony Fourier who was

making precious metal wires at Lyon, France was also facing

persecution. He shifted to Nuremberg, Germany and founded his

workshop. By 1621 his sons had founded other workshops including

one in Roth. Three centuries later in 1917 the various offshoot

companies joined together. The next 96 years has been for LEONI

group, an exciting journey of growth and technology development.

And today the journey started by Anthony Fourier from Lyon has reached Chakan, Pune. And what a great journey it has been!!!

How did we reach here? The present leg of the journey began in 2011,

when LEONI group decided to set-up a cable factory in India. The target

markets were Automotive, Oil and Gas, Rolling Stock and Solar. The

activities of that year resulted in decision for 100% LEONI Greenfield

Project at Pune and selection of local Management Team,

With key team joining in early 2012 the activities focused on site

selection in Pune. About 50 locations were checked and finally made

our choice with Indo-Space Rohan Industrial Park at Chakan. After

intensive negotiations we signed the agreement on 21st June which

happened to be the longest day of the year.

Construction began in middle of monsoon the toughest season of the

year…………. In just six months, LEONI Cables India has made

phenomenal progress in delivering great success by installing first

extrusion line. Subsequently first samples were produced and sent for

approvals. We are proud to announce the approvals from VW, Ford,

Daimler etc. I would like to extend my congratulations to our

colleagues and the entire team of dedicated people that made this

possible.

In parallel the recruitment and training of staff was going on, most of

the staff has been trained at Europe. On an average they are spending

2-4 weeks to make sure the product quality will be of the same

standard. Team of European experts is regularly visiting to make sure

the process followed is exactly same as that in other factories. The

quality control equipment is calibrated with same masters to ensure

the end results are exactly the same.

Currently from the two extrusion lines we are producing standard

automotive cables. Soon the wire drawing and bunching process will

begin to increase the local content. Plans are on the anvil to add more

extrusion lines and increase the capacity. With LEONI technology we

shall also produce low cross-sections and high temperature cables to

meet the changing demand of automotive customers.

In the next four months machinery installation for the instrumentation

cable will be done. This will enable us to produce the high quality

cables required for critical applications in Oil & Gas, Petrochemicals,

Power Plants, Process Industry, etc. The customers will get the famous

LEONI ICON range of cables. We are proud to say LEONI Kerpen

products have been accepted by customers like Reliance Petroleum

who have very high quality standards. We are grateful for their

support and patronage.

We are planning to export the instrumentation cables to other markets

in Middle East, South East Asia and other parts of the world. Our goal is

to export more than 50% of our output thereby earning foreign

exchange for the country.

The process for securing permissions to install the high technology

electron beam accelerator has been started. It will enable us to make

the latest generation cables for solar and railway markets.

We are also committed to bring to Indian customers products they

desire – products of reliability, certainty and longevity.

Let me express my sincere gratitude to all of our employees, partners,

media friends, the Indian government and everyone who has given us

valuable support. It is only with your unwavering support that we are

able to unleash our potential and achieve our common goals.

Let us work together to make this venture a great success.