General Electric Co will start manufacturing more products in India even as it forecast a tough period in the short term for its operations here.
“We want to make it (India) local operations here and not import products from the world. If you look at the exchange rates now, we need to have a really local company,” GE India president and CEO, Mr John L. Flannery, told Business Line . He said local manufacturing will also enable the company to take the processes or products to other emerging markets.
He said while the company has been achieving the targeted growth of 30 per cent every year, it will be a tough period in the short term. He said that the earlier target of achieving $8 billion revenue by 2012 set for the country was no longer relevant because of the slowdown in the economy. “But we are doing fine in India and we will continue to do so.”
POWER ISSUES
The GE India chief, who joined the operations here in end-2009, also pointed out that the policy paralysis in the Indian government has stunted the country's growth in the energy sector. “It has been disappointing to me. For example, shortage of power is leading to contraction of industry, which is pulling the GDP down. There are very elemental macro-economic things India has to work on. They really need to ring-fence a few of the infrastructure projects,” Mr Flannery said.
Products, processes
He said GE is looking at developing products for the emerging markets which will help it to take either the technology or the process to other markets. The GE India chief also said that the company is willing to explore partnering with local companies for Defence projects while expressing happiness about the state of the existing joint ventures, including the one with Wipro Ltd.
He said the company wants to stay invested in India. “Everything that has happened here gives us an indication that it is the right way to go. For all the negative noise about India in the last few months, we would like to keep our head down and keep playing in India.”