Mogae receives Indian mining magnates

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Correspondent | Thursday August 16, 2007 00:00

 

Sudir Mehta of Torrent and Dilip Mehta of Rosyblue proceeded to hold talks with other relevant ministries later in the day. 

Sudir, whose company is also exploring opportunities of investing in power generation, met with officials of the Botswana Power Corporation. Torrent is keen to mine coal in Botswana mainly for export to India where Sudir says demand is 'enormous'.
After the exploratory meetings, Sudhir, who is the Chairman of Torrent, said after learning of Botswana's vast coal reserves, his company was ready to invest $500 (approximately P3.1 billion) to develop a mine here.

Torrent is currently involved in power distribution in the Indian state of Gujarat where it supplies three cities - Ahme Dabad, Surat and Ghandi Nagar.

'We want to mine coal here and ship it to India where the demand is very high,' Sudir told Mmegi. 'We also have a keen interest in generating and distributing electricity in Botswana.

'We are ready to invest at least US$500 million in the project as soon as possible.' Sudir added that Torrent, who are the sole distributors of power in India's state of Gujarat, had been in business for 15 years.

His relative and compatriot, Dilip, who is the CEO of Rosyblue, said he wants to invest in Botswana's fledgling diamond cutting and polishing industry and in jewellery.

Rosyblue has assets amounting to US$1.3 billion (approximately P8.1 billion). Outside India, Dilip's company has operations in 15 countries including South Africa, Belgium, China, Thailand, the US, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.   'In addition to cutting and polishing, we are in the diamond jewellery manufacturing and retail business. We want to start in Botswana as soon as possible,' he says, adding that they will be buying diamonds in large quantities once they are in business.   'We are not a small- or medium-sized company,' Dilip says. 'We are not looking for a small operation; we want to venture into a diamond cutting and polishing operation that will employ 500 people immediately.'

Rosyblue is the second largest diamond cutting company in South Africa where it employs 250 people.