Investor News

ECT features in Indian headlines

Following on from our ASX announcement yesterday updating shareholders on the status of our project in India, comes this article featuring another mention of ECT.

The article's focus is on governance, transparency and accountability, providing an opportunity to provide some context to the backdrop of our current activities as we step through the review process with NITI Aayog, initiated almost a year ago.

India is the world's largest democracy, making it a complex place to govern. India is an emerging nation. Rapidly emerging.

With growth of this scale and magnitude, structures, systems, and checks and balances need to be at the core of the nation's public and private sector activities to ensure their goals of attracting investment and delivering outcomes for all stakeholders are met.

ECT, NLC and NMDC seek to deliver a first-of-a-kind project that commences with an R&D phase and then articulates into a commercial rollout domestically.

But there's more; the global market.

With ambitions to target all markets with brown coal and India's ability to provide a high-quality yet cost-effective manufacturing base, the project model is also a business model for significant potential future investment by NLC and NMDC.

The investment value is potentially measured in billions, and the investment horizon in decades.

So, it's understandable that a level of due diligence is applied that reflects the importance of getting things right for all parties.

Many investors will appreciate that few Australian companies have succeeded in breaking into the Indian market and that those who do, tell a similar story; you need patience and persistence. The desire for faster progress is understandable, but what many fail to grasp is the pace at which we're moving is rapid, in Indian terms.

Relationship building takes time. We've put in that time. And that's reflected in the invitation to share the stage with NLC at such events.

There are no shortcuts to success in India. At least none that stand the test of time and integrity.

We welcome the high level of governance and accountability and look forward to completing the review process as we work toward our previously announced timeframe of signing the Master Project Agreement and concluding financial arrangements by 30 June.

Read more below...

‘Corporate governance is all about transparency, accountability’

The Hindu | 21 February 2018 

Corporate governance and financial management are fundamentally about improving transparency and accountability, said S.K. Acharya, CMD, NLC India Ltd (NLCIL).

Source: ‘Corporate governance is all about transparency, accountability’ - The Hindu