RAK Ceramics will invest Dh140 million ($38.1 million) in expansions, including Dh60 million in a 30,000 square metre per day production plant.

This will raise the Ras Al Khaimah (UAE) plant's capacity to 132,000 sq m of ceramic and gres porcelain tiles per day.

A further Dh60 million will be used to establish a plant in China, while another Dh20 million will be spent on a plant to produce an additional 1,000 pieces of vitreous china sanitaryware per day, from an output of 5,000 pieces.

The company has set up manufacturing and processing plants in Bangladesh (ceramics and porcelain) and Slovakia (sanitaryware). Totally it has eight tile factories.

With these investments, the total investment made by RAK Ceramics rises to Dh1.2 billion," said Dr Khater Massaad, general manager of RAK Ceramics.

He said the company would manufacture 50 million sq m of tiles and two million pieces of sanitaryware in 2003, which will make it the No 1 maker of tiles and sanitaryware in the world in terms of volume.

It has acquired 120,000 sq m of land in Guangdong in China and production will start in June.

RAK Ceramics started operations in 1991 with a production capacity of 5,000 sq m per day of ceramic tiles. The company has a wide range of what it calls "avant garde designs" and produces tiles in sizes ranging from 10 x 10cm to 125 x 185cm with up to 2cm thickness. Its first sanitaryware plant was commissioned in 1993 to complement its tiles range. The production lines were equipped with machinery from Sacmi (Italy) and the factory had an initial production of 360,000 pieces per year. The production has since grown to 1.8 million per year.

The company has 10 pressure casting units for the production of wash-basins, pedestals, cisterns, lids and accessories. Computerised robot spraying is used to give each piece of sanitaryware an even finish. The company produces both closed-rim and open-rim WCs with Sacmi's high-pressure casting machine with resin mould. In 2002 RAK Ceramics started a new line for the production of shower trays and kitchen sinks.

The company has two sanitaryware factories in Ras Al Khaimah. A new Sacmi tunnel kiln is planned for installation in 2003. This will enable production capacity to reach 2.4 million pieces per year

The company enjoys an 80 per cent market share in the UAE, about 25 per cent of its production. The rest is exported to Australia, Greece, Germany and Hong Kong. The company's sanitaryware is exported to the US, UK and South Africa.

RAK Ceramics invested Dh3.65 million in acquiring new technology at the Big 5 show. The company's turnover was expected to rise to Dh700 million in 2002 from Dh650 million.

"The need to expand even more rapidly than the market dictates is part of our corporate business philosophy formulated with a view to growing exponentially rather than restricting ourselves to limited segments, countries or even products," says Massaad. He said the strategy was to capitalise on the demand for material that emulated natural stone and its variants in form and structure

The official remarked that the establishment of factories in Bangladesh and Slovakia and subsidiaries in Europe and Australia had boosted the company's reputation worldwide.