India poised to emerge as a global manufacturing hub for Earthmoving and Construction Equipments

Bangalore, November 16, 2007: India is poised to emerge as a global manufacturing hub for Earthmoving and Construction Equipment industry and a centre for design and R & D for ECE Industry. This was reverberated during EXCON 2007 Conference on opportunities and challenges in the ECE Industry organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the Indian Earthmoving & Construction Equipment Association Ltd (IECIAL).

In his opening remarks Mr. S. Raghavan, Executive Vice president, Machinery Sector, Larsen & Toubro Limited said, India is a market that has a huge potential for growth and it is also the right time for the companies to tap the opportunities.

Mr. S.R Subramanian , CEO L&T-Komatsu Limited spoke on the potential of the manufacturing capacity of the Construction Equipment industry in India. He said that the major players in construction Equipment market in India have their own R & D centres. Indian companies are investing in R&D and developing technologies that are creating global benchmarks in the International market. He also spoke about the advantages of India as a manufacturing base for the ECE equipments. He further added that India companies with continuous focus on quality, low process engineering costs, higher asset utilization, low manpower costs and availability of raw materials are better positioned to evolve as a Manufacturing hub of Earth moving and Construction equipments.

Stressing on the emergence of Indian companies in this sector, Mr. Subramanian said that manufacturing in India follows a system process to meet global quality standards and is creating a change through a high performing culture and added that the world is looking at India as a preferred manufacturing destination rather than a market with attractive labour force.

Mr. S K Das , Executive Director, Bharat Earth Movers Limited said that Indian Manufacturing sector clocked decade highest growth rate of 14% in March 2007 because of the Focus on best practices and innovation. Mr. Das further added that the Growth in the ECE is in the range of 25% to 30% for the past few years and it will be continue to be so in the coming decade. Mr. Kevin Thieneman in his address spoke about the supply chain Management challenges and solutions and added that Better supply chain management is the need of the hour in the Industry because supply chain strategy and design reduces cost and improves the service to the Customers. He also spoke about the Third Party Logistics (3PL) penetrating into the Indian markets.

Mr. Rajendra Khoda , Director – Sales (South Asia & The Middle East), Terex Pegson Ltd spoke about the technological developments in the Crushing and screening equipments. He emphasized the advantages of Tracked (Mobile) Plants such as easy mobility, no land acquisition cost, Low assembly cost, planning of the cost and budgeting.

Mr. K. Kimura, Director, Telcon gave an insight about the technology trends in the world with respect to construction equipments and emphasized on the need for environmental friendly equipments. He quoted by an example of a product based on the concept of the Global e-service machines. These machines can be monitored and controlled through satellite and are GPS enabled. This technology helps in ascertaining the exact location of the equipment and thus results in easy and faster supply of raw material or providing the repair or maintenance at the earliest hence reducing the average completion cost and time.

Mr. Arjun Mirdha, Executive Vice President, JCB India Ltd spoke extensively on India being an export hub in manufacturing components and machines. He stressed on the fact that India would become the 3rd largest economy by 2050 and hence offered immense potential in the Infrastructure Development front.

For further information please contact:

Prashanthi J/Uzzal Mohan, Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, Tel: 2340 0981/2