Experts discuss potential in Electronics sector
Electronic manufacturing is one of the focus sectors of India’s Aatmanitbhar Bharat program as India imports more than USD 54 billion worth electronic goods annually and this category has the second highest trade deficit after crude oil in the country’s foreign trade. MVIRDC World Trade Center Mumbai and All India Association of Industries organised a webinar to discuss potential for local manufacturing in the electronic and electrical goods sectors.
The webinar, titled Reigniting Manufacturing Growth through MSME Development - Electrical and Electronic sector’ was addressed by Mr Anil Joshi, Executive Director, BHEL and Mr. G. S. Madhu-sudan, CEO and Co-Founder, InCore Semiconductors. The session was moderated by Mr Bipin Sapra, Partner - Indirect Tax, Ernst and Young.
In his introductory remarks, Mr Sapra highlighted the government schemes to promote self-reliance and reduce imports of electronic goods. He specifically mentioned the Production Linked Incentive.
Speaking on this occasion, Mr Joshi informed, “BHEL has identified 300 plus products for procure-ment from the domestic industry of MSEs. On an annual average basis, this has a business potential of around Rs. 3000 crore. BHEL is willing to mutually support the domestic industry with our infrastructure and resources to meet national targets. BHEL has launched SANRACHNA online technology platform to collaboratively support local industry in technology innovation and problem solving.”
Mr Joshi further remarked, “Going by the government’s thrust areas, we see lot of market potential for local manufacturing in fields such as e-mobility, railway electrification, renewables and in energy conservation, for which we will need products such as inverters, transformers, power conditioning units, solar modules, LEDs, batteries, battery chargers, IP based public address system, FRP cable trays etc.”
Mr. G. S. Madhusudan said, “Indian government should identify 15 items such as remote controls, LED fixtures, raspberry computer parts, power adaptor strips, WiFi modules, power supply compo-nents of personal computers etc. for MSME clusters and make them globally competitive. The gov-ernment led R&D institutions should develop designs and license them to MSMEs for mass produc-tion with strict targets for production and exports.”
Earlier in his welcome remarks, Mr. Vijay Kalantri, Chairman, MVIRDC World Trade Center, Mumbai said that India exports USD 8.5 billion of electrical machinery which is just 2% of the global trade in this segment, though it has overall grown at a CAGR of 32% since 2015-16.
India’s size of electrical machinery industry is around USD 50 billion, which is far low compared to the USD 200 billion target set under the Mission Plan of 2012-22 for this industry.
“We welcome competition from foreign companies, but it should not be at the cost of local compa-nies,” Mr. Kalantri said demanding support for local MSMEs with credit at affordable interest rate and infrastructure facilities.
The webinar was attended by representatives of trade and industry, consular corps, financial institutions and academia.
Ms. Sangeeta Jain, Senior Director, AIAI proposed vote of thanks for the event.