A manufacturer of refractory products in Adityapur industrial area, 10km from here, on Thursday announced a joint venture with a large German company in the same business vertical that promised investments to the tune of 100 million euros or Rs 850 crore, in a major boost for Jharkhand Inc.

The joint-venture company of Adityapur’s Hi-Tech Chemicals and Germany’s Intocast AG has been named Intocast Hi-Tech.

Matthias Normann, global managing director and CEO of Intocast, which has manufacturing facilities in 18 countries including Russia, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Brazil and China, said this was their first joint venture initiative with an Indian company.

“We would invest 100 million euros. We want our footprints here as we see India as the biggest growing market in the manufacturing of refractory products for steel industries,” Normann, who was accompanied by Intocast Group chairman Costa Theo and Intocast India MD Shyam Chetlapalli, said.

Normann added apart from pumping in funds, they would also transfer technology for production of refractory products. Currently, Hi-Tech Chemicals manufactures 50 types of refractory products that are supplied to steel industries within India including Tata Steel, SAIL, Essar Steel and Vizag Steel, and also exported. The number of products is expected to double with the joint venture initiative.

R.K. Agarwal, managing director of Hi-Tech Chemicals, a fully-automated refractories manufacturing unit spread across 12 acres, said it was a great moment for Adityapur. “The joint venture will give a big boost to refractories required for steel industries by manufacturing technologically advanced products,” he said.

Agarwal, a business tycoon who shot into limelight for an alleged horse-trading bid during the 2012 Rajya Sabha polls and currently on bail granted by the Supreme Court, said they were scouting for fresh 20 acres in the industrial area for expansion.

He added the joint venture would create job opportunities for another 500 people and help state government gain more tax revenue. “The current turnover of Hi-Tech Chemicals, set up in 1986, is around Rs 300 crore which would shoot up to Rs 1,000 crore in the next five years with this German collaboration,” he said.

President of Adityapur Small Industries Association (ASIA) Inder Agarwal also termed the joint venture a big development for Adityapur.

“The ancillary hub is looking up. This is the second such joint venture with a foreign collaborator. Earlier this year, Kyocera CTC Precision Tools , a joint venture between Japan’s Kyocera Corporation and CTC (India), started operations here. Looking forward to more such foreign investments in Adityapur which has some 1,200 small, medium and large scale industries,” he said.