Friday, January 31, 2014: India Electronics and Semiconductor Association, a premier trade body representing the Indian ESDM sector, opines that the domestic electronics manufacturers should get a level playing field to survive and excel. IESA has set a goal of meeting at least 50 per cent of demand for electronic products by domestic manufacturers by 2018.
The trade body feels that there are hurdles for domestic manufacturers as the taxation rates on import of raw materials are high along with cost of financing. Unavailability of infrastructures is yet another challenge faced by the home grown manufacturers of electronics industry in the country.
According to a Business Standard report, Sanjeev Keskar, chairman, IESA, said, “The Indian electronics manufacturers face 20 per cent more disadvantages compared to their Chinese and Korean peers, and addressing these disabilities remains a challenge. There is need for providing level playing field for the local manufacturers.”
It is worth mentioning here that around 65 per cent of the demand of electronics in India is met by imports and the remaining 35 per cent, which are mainly low-end products, are manufactured locally. According to estimates, the electronics imports are likely to increase from $28 billion in 2011 to $42 billion in 2015. The size of Indian ESDM industry is growing at a rate of 9.9 per cent CAGR, likely to be $94.2 billion by 2015. Electronics imports are third highest for the country after crude and gold.
“Whether there is policy interventions or not, the Indian consumption of electronic products will grow by leaps and bounds. Leveraging our local buying the challenge remains is how to develop the local ecosystem”, said Keskar. IESA has identified top 25 products that will amount to 80 per cent of the electronics demand in the country, out of which five of them are high growth products. The products include mobile phones, digital camera, LCD monitors, set top box, notebooks, memory cards and USB drives, base stations, routers or switches, digital instrument clusters, desktops etc.
