Anbakam Metals, started in 2002 at East Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, by Sivakumar Balasubramanian, an emigrant from Tiruvarur in Tamil Nadu, has bagged the prestigious USA Government's ‘Export Achievement Award' for contribution to global economy.
Congressman Rush Holt recently visited the Head Office of Anbakam Metals at Tices Lane to present the award to its 36-years-old president Mr. Sivakumar, in recognition of the large impact the company could make on the global scrap industry in 2009 despite the world-wide economic crisis.
The Export Achievement Certificate was created to recognise small and midsize enterprises that have successfully entered the international marketplace for then first time or have successfully entered a new market. The achievement of Anbakam Metals was illustrated in Home News Tribune and Sentinel.
The award stresses the importance of exports in the national economy and illustrates the contributions made by exporters to their local communities, the Sentinel reported. “Anbakam's niche markets have been focussed on the Indian subcontinent region and the Far East. The firm has helped to create a demand for containerized shipments of metal scrap while supplying jobs amid a gloomy job market.
It has used the Department of Commerce's Gold Key Program to create business opportunities and sales in the Vietnam market,” the report said.
While working as a business software developer for JP Morgan Chase Mr. Sivakumar started the company by customising containers for easy loading of scrap metal for export from trucks to ships at the Northeast region of United States.
The company moved 10,000 tonnes of scrap metal to overseas market last year using the small volumes approach that had been vogue for years in California and Florida.
Exports by the company accounted for one per cent of the 14 million tonnes of ferrous exports from the US in 2009, according to the report published by Home News Tribune. A press release issued by the company's Liaison Office, Tiruchi, said that the award designed by the US Government to recognise export businesses illustrates the contributions made by exporters to their local communities and companies which have successfully entered into international markets and had great success with the help of US Government agencies.
Anbakam Metals is now looking to extend its services to newer, untouched markets, the release said.
Mr. Sivakumar, who started his career as a 22-year-old with Pershing Corp, which specialised in business intelligence technology, and subsequently worked for BMW and JP Morgan, before venturing into the metal scrap business, said of Anbakam's future plans: “In next three to six months, we will be breaking ground for a power plant in South India and also venturing into renewable energy sector in the USA. By providing countries with these raw materials and our services, we become an essential part to the infrastructural growth in these markets.”
