Grameen Fibreglass factory to be set up this year

Grameen Telecom Trust and IES Alliance of Bahrain signed a MoU on Saturday to set up a joint venture fibreglass company in in Bangladesh.
The proposed company, Grameen Fibreglass, will make fibreglass products, pipes for sanitation and sewerage purposes, building materials, boats and furniture, said a statement.
Prof Muhammad Yunus, chairman of Grameen Telecom Trust, and Shahid Ahmed, managing director of Alliance Fibre Glass and False Marble Company, signed the MoU at the Grameen headquarters in Dhaka on Thursday.
The company will be a social business where the owners will be able to get back the amount equivalent to their investment, but no dividend will be paid.
The factory will be set up at the Grameen Social Business Industrial Park at Kashimpur in Gazipur, and is expected to go into production by the year-end.
IES Alliance is a Bahrain-based fibreglass company, which is owned by Shahid Ahmed, a Bangladeshi with thirty-five years of experience in producing fibreglass.
Ahmed responded to the call of Prof Yunus to set up social business to solve social and environmental problems.
At present IES Alliance has three main sister concerns: Alliance Fibre Glass & False Marble Company, IES Alliance Business Solutions, and Alliance Information Technology. Alliance Fibre Glass offers top-quality fibreglass and artificial marble products within the Gulf region.
Grameen Fibreglass will help expedite the expansion of Grameen Shakti’s biogas production facilities. Grameen Shakti, one of the largest and fastest growing rural-based renewable energy companies in the world, already has over 8,000 biogas plants installed in the villages with support from Infrastructure Development Company Ltd, the government agency to promote renewable energy.
Grameen Shakti plans to install a total of 25,000 biogas plants by the end of 2011. Pre-fabricated fibreglass tanks will make it easy to install these plants. China uses fibreglass tanks for the expansion of its biogas programme.
Grameen Fibreglass will have an initial capacity to produce 1,000 biogas tanks per month. Later it will expand capacity to make water pipes, building materials, boats and other materials for domestic market as well as export.