Dear Friends,

Very recently, at the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Prime Minister Modi committed India to an ambitious five-part “Panchamrit” pledge- India’s 5 commitments to stop climate change. This is indeed a great step towards encouraging climate action within the country. At GHCL, we believe that as responsible corporate citizens every business must do its bit for the betterment of the society. For us, being environmentally conscious is an integral part of doing business. We have been driving various initiatives such as green energy and long term sustainability and environment friendly practices to ensure positive change. We also emphasise on sustainable and circular business processes, optimum utilisation of resources and investments in upgrading existing technology to minimise our carbon footprint.

Under the aegis of GHCL Foundation Trust, we are working on various initiatives to help society and people and upgrade their standard of living. As a recognition of its efforts, GHCL Foundation Trust received the prestigious Mahatma Award 2021 for CSR Excellence and Sustainability.

On the business front, we posted an improved performance in Q2FY22 fuelled by better demand. Despite a significant increase in energy and raw material costs, our Inorganics Chemicals division’s revenue grew by 19% in Q2 FY22 as compared to Q2 FY21. Spinning continued to witness robust growth, with yarn and cotton prices at historic highs, and improving spreads. The home textile business also saw sharp jump in revenues, led by higher sales to US and other export markets. Going forward, we will remain focused on adding new value-added products in this segment to boost our performance.

On the anvil are various expansion plans that will help enhance our competitiveness and quality of products. In the Inorganic chemicals business, the Greenfield expansion is on track. Going forward our focus will be to ensure debottlenecking, enhancing backward integration capabilities and increasing capacity for production of sodium bicarbonate. In the textiles business we are focusing on modernizing and expanding the spinning business and introducing value added products to help improve margins. With a focus on customer centricity, innovation, operational excellence and digitisation we are confident of generating strong cash flows and sustained earnings performance.

Dear friends, in the past year, the extreme weather events across the World have heightened awareness and concerns about environmental issues and the impact of Global warming. They have also made us realise that we are certainly running out of time. Nobel Prize nominee Greta Thunberg, once said, “The climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.”  I agree with her. We know what is to be done. We just have to start consciously and stay committed.

Regards,

R S Jalan