HOSUR/CHENNAI/SANAND - When Mr Ganesh Sethuraman moved to India in 2023 to set up a new manufacturing facility for his Singapore employer, JLK Automation, he quickly learnt that perseverance was essential for doing business in the country.
Nestled among metamorphic rocks, the small town has no cinema hall, mall or park, but is an ideal home for the JLK factory. It is situated just 42km from Indian giant Tata Electronics and 90km from Foxconn’s new factory near tech hub Bengaluru’s international airport. – after Bengaluru – and third-largest financial and banking hub, the city in Haryana accounts for approximatelyWorld Bank president Ajay Banga called this moment India’s “window of opportunity that is available only for a short period” of three to four years before alternative supply chains are set up. Some economists estimate the window will be open for up to 10 years.
American plane manufacturer Boeing opened its largest engineering centre outside the United States in the tech hub of Bengaluru in southern India, while GE Aerospace is making more aeroplane parts in the country for export. TSMT Technology, a Taiwanese manufacturer of circuit boards for phones, has been in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu, since 2017. It employs 800 workers. PHOTO: RAMESH S.
Wistron quit India over labour issues in 2023, but its operations were quickly taken over by Tata Electronics at its plant in Hosur. Electronics exports grew from US$8.4 billion in 2018-2019 to US$22.7 billion in 2022-2023. Over half of that boost came from mobile phone exports. According to Indian government figures, more than 440 companies from Singapore are registered in India in various sectors, including JLK, industry solutions company Flextronics Technologies and manufacturing services company Hi-P.
The programme, which starts in May, will offer 50 internship positions of three to six months at 13 Indian and Singapore companies, including CapitaLand Investment and Tata Steel. It aims to offer Singapore university and polytechnic students “first-hand experience of the local corporate and business culture”.
For “long-term competitiveness”, however, the “government’s real task is to improve the component ecosystem” that supplies parts to foreign multinationals, said Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology secretary S. Krishnan. He said the next round of incentives from the government would focus on electronics component manufacturing.