Coimbatore: Valvitalia, an Italian company that manufactures valves and energy equipment, has started it's plant in Coimbatore. Giovanni Scovenna, president of the Valvitalia Group, told presspersons that the company had initially invested about Rs. 1. 6 crore for the Coimbatore plant. The 1,500 sq.mt plant, located 20 km from Coimbatore city on Sathyamangalam Road, would manufacture butterfly valves, control valves, regulators and safety relief valves. In the long run, the unit here would make gas pressure regulators and gas filtering, regulating and metering stations too. The group started its operations in 2002 in Italy and currently has an annual turnover of over $ 400 million. It has five manufacturing facilities in Italy and one in China. The seventh is now opened in Coimbatore. Butterfly valves would be made only at the Coimbatore plant. About 70 per cent of Coimbatore’s production would be for exports and the rest for the domestic market. Mr. Scovenna said that compared to Italy, the material cost would be about 15 per cent less here thus providing the company with a cost advantage. Valvitalia Group caters to the needs of the oil and gas, power, petroleum refining, petrochemicals, chemicals and fertilizer industries. The group decided on Coimbatore because of the availability of skilled manpower, cluster of foundries, high precision machining capacity and infrastructure. In another four months, the manufacturing capacity here would need about 40 tonnes of castings a month and this would go up gradually. “We would like to achieve about 10 per cent of group’s turnover from India in another four to five years,” he said.