India's top paints maker, Asian Paints Ltd. expects to exit operations in China and Thailand by the end of February, after it sold stakes in two loss making units in Hong Kong and Malaysia".

The company has divested its units in Hong Kong and Malaysia, the divestment of units in Thailand and China are currently in progress," P M Murty, managing director and chief executive told . The company hopes to complete the divestment by next month.

The firm, which gets more than half of its international revenues from the Middle East, has seen good volume growth in that region, though it is cautious in its outlook for sales from Dubai. Asian Paints did not specify the percentage of sales it gets from its Dubai operations.

The firm is expecting a "minor gain" in its financial results as a result of the stake sale in its China and Thai operations. Asian Paints's consolidated Oct-Dec net profit soared to 1.98 billion rupees from about 590 million rupees a year ago. Murthy said the company does not expect to sustain profit margins at current levels.

"These are margins which are at an all time high and is not sustainable at these levels...but I am not going to make any predictions as to where that margin is going to be," Murty said. "As the market matures and as new competition gets established in this country, competitive pressures will probably intensify. That's why we think these margins, which are at a very high level today, will probably not be sustained".

Asian Paints is on track to set up a plant at Rohtak ( 60 Km away from New Delhi) in Haryana by April this year and has spent about 2.5 billion rupees in the first three quarters of FY10 on the plant, which will have an initial capacity of 150,000 kilo litres. It has also acquired land near Pune in Maharashtra for another decorative paints plant and construction is expected to commence during the course of this year.