Mumbai: Reliance Industries Limited has signed a letter of intent with Nova Chemicals to form a  joint venture in the area of building and construction. Reliance would hold 51 per cent and Nova 49 per cent in the proposed JV.

NOVA Chemicals would be a technological partnership for Reliance for deploying green building and construction technologies to design, engineer, fabricate and build a range of energy-efficient structures for the Indian sub-continent.

Under the LoI, NOVA will provide turnkey facilities to build structures for RIL as per its requirements, and for other customers, initially within the Indian subcontinent.

''India has a $60 billion construction market that is growing at about 20 per cent per year. The potential for energy efficient buildings in India is very exciting and these systems are an excellent fit for Reliance Retail's strategy.'' said Kamal Nanavaty, resident. Reliance Industries Limited.

''This new venture will enable us to work with Reliance to build a large, profitable business based on our proprietary `Performance Styrenics' building and construction systems,'' said Chris Pappas, NOVA Chemicals President and COO.

These unique building and construction systems and component parts, based on expandable polystyrene, minimise resource consumption while decreasing on-going energy demand by as much as a third. The components of the system include structural and non-structural roof, decking and wall panels.

The new venture is expected to be operational soon following finalization of formal agreements. Initial steps necessary to fabricate components in India are underway. The first activity of the venture will be the construction of buildings for Reliance Retail in India.

NOVA Chemicals develops and manufactures chemicals, plastic resins and end-products for the health, safety, security and environmental sectors.

Reliance Industries is India's largest private sector company on all major financial
parameters with turnover of Rs139,269 crore ($34.7 billion), cash profit of Rs25,205 crore ($6.3 billion), net profit of Rs19,458 crore ($4.9 billion) and net worth of Rs81, 449 crore ($20.30 billion) as of 31 March 2008.

RIL is the first and only private sector company from India to feature in the Fortune Global 500 list of 'World's Largest Corporations' and ranks amongst the world's top 200 companies in terms of profits.

Reliance Retail Limited (RRL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, which opened its first retail store in November 2006, today operates over 600 stores in over 59 cities, spanning 13 states with over 3.5 million sq ft. RRL is a multi-format.