Italy's Legnano Teknoelectric to Set Up Factory in Jebel Ali Free Zone

Italian steel manufacturer Legnano Teknoelectric Company SpA (LTC) (Milan), which specializes in electrical steel, plans to set up a factory in the Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) in United Arab Emirates to process grain-oriented electrical steel, from coils to magnetic cores used in distribution and electrical power transformers.

According to reports from Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, TX), the factory, the first for LTC in the Middle East, will be set up over an area of 27,500 sq m and is scheduled to open in 2012. Facilities at the plant will include a crane with a lifting capacity of 80 tons. The plant will process thousands of tons of electrical steel each year. Products from the new plant will include highly permeable, laser-treated and non-oriented electrical steel, as well as conventional steel.

The output of the new plant will be aimed at markets in Asia and the Middle East that require a shipping time of three to four weeks from the company's home base in Milan. LTC sees Dubai, and JAFZA in particular, as an important springboard for its regional operations. With close proximity to both a seaport and an airport, JAFZA will provide LTC and its customers in the region cost-benefits through reduced shipping costs, while providing a more localized service.

LTC was formed in 1983, building on the experience of the Bertelli family in the design and manufacture of electrical transformers. The company has now evolved into a specialist firm in the processing of electrical steel and has four production plants in Milan. Products range from cut laminations, cut-to-width and fully built cores for the manufacture of power, distribution, furnace, traction and dry-type low voltage transformers to high-voltage line reactors.

The company has a representative office in Hong Kong to cover its Far East operations and agents in Brazil, Canada, China, Taiwan and Europe.

The Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai is one of the world's fastest growing and largest free zones, covering an area of 48 sq km. Currently, more than 6,000 companies from 110 countries operate within the zone, which first opened in 1985 with just 19 companies represented. JAFZA is located midway between the Jebel Ali seaport, which is the world's sixth-largest seaport, and the Al Maktoum International airport, the world's largest cargo-handling airport.