Oman's only manufacturer of ACs has signalled it is diversifying its activities, having accepted an agency role for a Chennai-based company marketing traffic monitoring equipment.

Eastern Trading and Industry LLC, whose production facilities are at the Rusayl Industrial Estate, currently manufactures AC equipment under the Nisma and Saaki brands. The company expanded its product range this year with the manufacture of equipment for chilling water.

Recently it signed an MoU with an Indian IT company, Best Information Technology Limited that has invented "intelligent highway", a gadget that monitors traffic violations through satellite.

A technical team from Best Information recently gave a demonstration to the Royal Oman Police, which granted it preliminary approval for a pilot project, according to TC Premraj, one of the owners of Eastern Trading. "Some infrastructure will have to be set up by the road side. Vehicles will need to have the gadget fixed to the windscreen which will be done through police," said Premraj who shares ownership of Eastern Trading with Ali Mahmood Al Hamdan. The company was set up in the mid-1980s.

About his AC business, Premraj said turnover in 2000 was RO1.9 million. Sales totalled 9,000 split AC units in 2000 (11,000 in 1999) and 13,000 room ACs (15,000 in 1999). The company expects better business this year, having secured an export order worth $5-6 million for split and window ACs from the Iraqi government. Eastern Trading will also provide technical knowhow to rehabilitate an AC plant in Iraq, supplying some components as well. The company also expects sales of chillers to rise. By the beginning of June, it had sold 1,000 of them including 500 to Kuwaiti consumers.

Seventy-five per cent of air-conditioning equipment is exported to the Middle East and European countries including Belgium, Cyprus, Greece and Malta. The equipment going to Europe includes 500 to 600 heat-pump ACs. Similar equipment is also sold to Omani and Saudi security authorities for use during winter in border posts.

Premraj said the company's profits had taken a beating from dumping by Korea and China. Prices had dropped from a GCC average of RO135 per 1.5 tonne unit to RO108 within two years. However, the cost of importing components had not changed, leaving AC manufacturers with very slim margins. The company imports US compressors and controls from the Far East. Other components are purchased locally.