RMD Board, the world’s leading pre-decorated wall and ceiling panel manufacturer operating from Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, is looking at achieving a turnover of Dh600 million ($163.35 million) in 2017 with the growing global popularity of the composite polypropylene (PP) boards and broad changes effected to its marketing and promotion, the company said.

Fixing a target of Dh3 billion ($816.74 million) turnover by 2020 and finalising plans for manufacturing plants in six countries, the JRD International’s division utilised its fourth successive participation in The Big 5 construction industry trade show in Dubai recently to convey that it is growing bigger and stronger.

“We have been successful in strongly achieving our objectives through The BIG 5. We got new business leads and created wider brand awareness and education cogently,” said Anupam Lunavat, managing director, RMD Board, JRD International.

The company has devised new global marketing drive which included a new action-packed, head-turning TV Commercial (TVC) by its two brand ambassadors -- Bollywood actors Hrithik Roshan and Jacqueline Fernandez. Over the next two years, they will support RMD Board’s efforts to take their products a few notches up.

Sagar Verma, president of RMD Division, JRD International, says the company is effecting a gradual shift from business-to-business (B2B) to business-to-consumer (B2C) model as it enters into the New Year. Gradually adopting a ‘one-stop shop’ concept to consolidate its strengths, the company is focussed on products that boast the natural look of marble, granite, wood and leather, rather than artificial designs.

RMD Board, with its state-of-the-art Dh450-million, 40,000 sq m manufacturing plant in the world’s leading free zone, has been expanding the production capacity from an installed capacity of 12,000 tonnes per annum.

It plans an Dh1.5-billion investment for 70 polypropylene manufacturing lines in seven countries. The company aims to reach global production of half a million metric tonnes per annum by the end of 2016. The company plans to have plants in India, China, Turkey, Russia, Brazil and US in the next seven years, it said.

The RMD products are water-proof, termite resistant, certified fire retardant, highly durable, light-weight and 100 per cent recyclable. The use of PP in these engineered products replaces the use of wood, thus reducing carbon foot print, which is a global environment concern, it said.

The plant uses energy efficient patented technology that creates honeycomb-like structures that gives these fire-rated boards excellent strength to weight ratio.  These boards could be used in civil engineering and construction industry and they offers value-for-money as they are lightweight, reusable with an almost-zero attrition rate.  RMD is the only company in the world making these products which are patented to it, it claimed.

The product is now selling in 17 countries including, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, Africa and the six GCC countries. It hopes to seek out in future further opportunities in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Lunavat said: “Through the BIG 5, we got 80 to 90 enquiries for distributorship for countries like Canada, New Zealand and the UK. We have finalised the distributorship for Algeria, Sri Lanka and South Africa among others at the four-day show.”

The number of visitors at the company's striking two-level stand at The Big 5 more than doubled when compared with last year. - TradeArabia News Service