Japan has sought strong intervention by the Indian government to prevent certain chronic bottlenecks, subject to which Japanese firms would be keen to invest in India’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem
By EB Bureau
Thursday, June 05, 2014: Japanese organisations are considering India as a strategic hub and are keen to participate in different projects across the country, said Tamaki Tsukada, minister, economic development, embassy of Japan, at a round table discussion on ‘Electronics Manufacturing Industry—Challenges and the Way Forward’, organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI), along with the Department of Information Technology (DeitY), on May 26, 2014, in New Delhi.
Tsukada shared the Japanese government’s perspective on three issues pertaining to the electronics manufacturing ecosystem in India—the complicated tax system in India, lack of infrastructure, and delays in procedures and processes.
“Japan proposes five items for consideration by the Government of India, all of which need strong intervention by the government—support for all the sectors of the electronics manufacturing industry, support measures for subsidising the ventures, availability of skilled HR at all levels of the management, simplification of the tax system, and tariff cuts in order to be integrated into the global supply chain,” he said.
R&D: The need of the hour
Dr Ajay Kumar, joint secretary, DeitY, who was the chief guest at the event, said that R&D is of utmost importance in the fields of electronics manufacturing; hence, he emphasised the need for skills development programmes to be undertaken by the ministry to create skilled hands that meet industry needs. “DeitY is working closely to develop better relations with Japan to attract investments from Japanese organisations. The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has developed investor friendly policies to attract investment and to help in the growth of the electronics industry,” he said. He also said that the government is focusing on building up globally competitive electronics design skills to meet both the country’s needs and serve the international markets.
Haryana: An investor friendly state
Salil Narang, general manager, investment promotion centre, HSIIDC, talked about Haryana being an investor friendly state with state-of-the-art infrastructure and ample technical manpower. He said that Haryana has the highest per capita income and is the largest producer of automobiles in the country. “To enable electronics manufacturing in India, the state has developed entirely different SEZs. The Haryana government policies have attracted different IT and electronics organisations to invest in a politically stable environment with a GDP of about Rs 64.6 billion,” he said.
Focus more on design and manufacturing
Sanjeev Gupta, chairman, ICT committee of PHDCCI, said that India needs to concentrate and focus more on designing and manufacturing global products and exploring export markets. “Not only should India leverage its strengths in software to build products of high complexity, but also work towards manufacturing medium-volume products for the global market. Further, the Indian industry should focus on inventing mass-products that matter to the rural and ‘bottom of the pyramid’ segments,” he said.
Sanjeev Gupta further said that the demand for appliances and energy efficient consumer electronics is huge and can be explored by the Indian electronics industry. Increasing R&D intensity should be the joint effort of both the government and industry. With such strategies, the Indian electronics industry would excel both in domestic and international markets.
The round table focused on addressing the issues and challenges that prevail in the process of implementing the policies of DeitY. It identified the effective courses of action to be taken to ensure that these policies result in the growth of the electronics manufacturing industry.
