Bangalore, Oct 25 (IANS): World's leading vacuum solutions provider Oerlikon Leybold Friday opened an India office here to power its sales in the South Asian region for higher market share.

"We continue to invest in emerging markets like India to serve industrial needs better in South Asia and the India office will be the sales and service hub for the region," Oerlikon chief executive Martin Fuellenbach told reporters here on the occasion.

Though the Cologne-based Swiss firm has been present in India since 2005 through agents and later by setting up a subsidiary, it augmented its services for vacuum gauge calibration to provide complete set-up of complex systems.

"As our key customers like the space department are located here (Bangalore), our presence will enable us to better serve their needs as we offer complete solutions," said Oerlikon India general manager M. Sreenivasulu.

Coming under the space department, the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) makes and launches rockets and satellites to meet the country's various communications and remote sensing applications.

The Oerlikon India subsidiary has an in-house vacuum gauge calibration facility and a helium leak testing service, with skills and capacity to service all its products except turbo pumps.

"Going forward, the India region will be key to our growth plans because of skilled manpower at a competitive cost," Fuellenbach said.

The company has flown in its application experts from Germany to train local engineers to service its customers in the countries across the region.

As a leading industrial group specialising in machine and plant engineering, Oerlikon provides cutting-edge technologies for chemical fiber machining, drive, vacuum, coating and advanced nano-technology in 34 countries the world over.

The company's advanced vacuum solutions are used in manufacturing and analytical process besides research activities.