German machinery exports to India to rise 10% per year upto 2015

New Delhi, July 27 (UNI) In view of the current trends, German machinery exports to India are expected to rise 10 per cent per year till 2015, according to a Deutsche Bank Research.

However, in the long run, German companies will only benefit by setting up manufacturing capabilities in India, the research added.

A few German companies have already taken up the lead like CLAAS in setting up a manufacturing plant in Punjab to manufacture, combine harvesters and agri-machinery components.

Bosche Group is hiking its power tools manufacturing capacity in the country by shifting production facilities from China and Malaysia.

Another German company, Herrenknecht AG, a market and technology leader in mechanical tunneling machinery has set up a 100 per cent-owned subsidiary in Chennai and is looking at establishing a manufacturing unit.

India is developing into one of the primary targets in Asia for German machinery exports.

In 2006, exports rose 63 per cent with India taking up 2.5 billion Euros worth of German machines. The value of machinery imports from India is virtually negligible at 226 million Euros, says Mr Ajay Singha, Deputy Director-General, Indo-German Chamber of Commerce IGCC).

The segments with the greatest export significance in 2006 were textile machinery (15 per cent share), power transmission engineering (13 per cent), machine tools (eight per cent), printing and paper equipment (eight per cent), construction equipment and building material machinery (eight per cent), air handling and refrigeration equipment (four per cent) and mechanical handling (four per cent).

India is benefiting much like China, from the expiry of the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, and is poised to become the world's second most important supplier.

The boom in orders from India for German textile machinery and spinning machines in particular, will thus continue.

''Similarly, we see a sizeable increase in the demand for machine tools for automobile sector, as well as machinery for the infrastructure, energy, Construction equipment and building material machinery and Printing and Paper equipment,'' Mr Singha said.

There has also been considerable investment by the German Mechanical engineering sector in the recent years in India.

In the medium term, Germany's engineering companies stand to gain from sizeable selling potential in India even though the latter will not turn into a second China, because India is pressing ahead in many sectors.

UNI