Aries Agro

It is with a deep sense of satisfaction, immense pleasure and great
 pride that I present to you the Thirty Eighth Annual Report of your
 Company, Aries Agro Limited.
 
 2007-08, the year under review in this Report, has been nothing short
 of a milestone in the history of Aries. Your Company is now the first
 specialty plant nutrient Company in India to have successfully
 completed an IPO to fund our expansion plans and our equity shares are
 now listed on both the premier Stock Exchanges of India, the BSE & NSE.
 Our IPO received excellent response from Investors, and was
 oversubscribed 7.62 times. I wish to thank all our Institutional,
 Overseas and Individual Investors and would also like to extend a very
 warm welcome to the Aries family.
 
 We have crossed the Rs 1 billion mark in sales revenue for the first
 time in this fiscal year and the profitability of your Company has
 grown significantly. I am sure that you will go through the detailed
 financial results with great interest and appreciate the efforts of
 every member of the Aries family.  Each of them has worked tirelessly
 in ensuring the healthy growth of our Company and I must pause to
 salute their efforts, their loyalty and commitment to Aries.
 
 The year has also seen Aries begin the journey towards transforming
 ourself into an Indian multinational. We now own a 75% stake in Golden
 Harvest Middle East FZC, an investment that will create Aries’ first
 manufacturing base abroad for Chelated Micronutrients. Through Golden
 Harvest, we also own a 25% stake in Mapco Fertilizers, UAE, which will
 manufacture water soluble NPK fertilizers for Aries and also open up a
 new, fast growing trade channel for our entire range of specialty plant
 nutrients in the Middle East and North Africa regions. Our flagship
 brands, Agromin Max, Chelamin and Chelafer are already on the shelves
 in these overseas markets, in addition to the SAARC Region where Aries
 already had a presence. Your Company is now making great strides in
 ensuring that it gives “India’s Best to the World.
 
 Innovation and ‘next practices’ continues to remain our priority.  The
 year saw Aries beginning the roll out of a fleet of customized rural
 retail vehicles that will be used to create a hybrid distribution
 channel in unserviced parts of India’s rural markets. We will work with
 our major distributors in providing greater access to our products and
 extension services in the remotest parts of India.  In addition to this
 innovative channel of distribution, Aries created a country-first in
 the launch of water soluble, self dissolving zip lock sachets for
 Chelamin. This marks the beginning of a new era of environmentally safe
 packaging, effectively eliminating the use of plastics and aluminium
 foil in the delivery of this unique pack of Chelated Zinc. Moreover
 this pack is sufficient for a single spray tank dose making it
 affordable even to farmers owning very small land areas.
 
 We also launched a unique Aries Agro Young Indian Farmers Network in
 partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry. The objective of
 this network is the spread of knowledge of best practices and globally
 accepted crop management practices.  The network already has over 5100
 young farmers, aged 25 to 40
 
 years, from 8 states engaged in a series of events that range from
 study tours, conferences and seminars, experiential sharing and
 University led field demonstrations and extensive research. The network
 and Aries are working to make “Balanced Crop Nutrition a National
 Imperative.” The year also saw two editions of our flagship Knowledge
 dissemination event, Agromax, held at Mumbai and Hyderabad with the
 august presence of young, progressive farmers from across India,
 scientists and eminent researchers, Industry leaders and senior
 government officials. Aries remains firm in its resolve to use the
 power of knowledge on specialty plant nutrition as a catalyst to
 improving India’s farm productivity. These initiatives have had immense
 impact on the trust that our customers evince in the Aries brand and
 the acceptability of our products across the country.
 
 We are rapidly increasing our manufacturing capacities in India. A
 planned capacity addition at four new manufacturing locations commenced
 with the inauguration of our largest, most automated factory at
 Pashamylaram, Hyderabad on 24 March 2008. This factory with a 32500 MT
 capacity is larger than all our four existing units at Mumbai,
 Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata (total of 21400 MT). Work has
 commenced on setting up new facilities at Ahmedabad and Lucknow as well
 and these units will be ready soon. Your Company will have increased
 its manufacturing base to 100,800 MT by the end of 2009 and these
 investments will help us maintain our leadership position in the
 specialty plant nutrient markets that we service. The year also saw us
 increasing throughput through our 5,000 distributors and 70,000 strong
 retail network with a range of best-in-class plant protection products
 as well. Every addition to our product portfolio, makes your Company
 inch closer to its dream of being India’s Specialty Agri Input
 Superbazaar.
 
 The efforts of Aries Agro were recently recognized on the World stage.
 Your Company was the proud winner of the “CNBC Emerging India Award
 2008”, being recognized as the best performing and most promising SME
 in the FMCG, Food and Agri- business category. This award instituted by
 CNBC TV18 & ICICI Bank, powered by CRISIL, evaluated over 3,00,000
 Indian SMEs on a wide set of quantitative and qualitative criteria,
 using a rigorous four-step process including a jury evaluation. Now in
 its fourth year, this award is the last word in SME rankings in India
 and the largest, most competitive business awards in the World. Aries
 Agro would not have achieved this distinction without the efforts of
 every member of the Aries family, across the sales, marketing,
 production, administrative and support teams, and the trust evinced by
 your Company’s 7 million customers who trust Aries brands and use them
 on their farms every single day.
 
 I would like to thank each one of you personally and assure you that
 Aries will not rest on these laurels. With every passing day, we shall
 grow larger, stronger and more vibrant as an organization. The world is
 our market today and with your continued support, your Company will
 rise to conquer global markets, while remaining firmly committed to the
 enduring Aries values.
 
                                                       Sincerely,
                                                   B. Mirchandani
                                                   Chairman