DMI met with the leadership team of Magal Engineering and Ingyu on the sidelines of IMTEX 2018 where Magal Engineering showcased Ingyu’s high-precision press technoligies. We spoke with M. K. Narasinga Rao, MD, Magal Engineering, Peter Dias, CEO, Unitech Metalforming Technologies Taiwan; Brenda Tung, Sales Manager, Ingyu about their product focus, future plans, India-Taiwan trade ties, views on India’s SMEs and their role in the furthering of mission Make in India. Edited excerpts.
What are the major products you are exhibiting here?
- K. Narasinga Rao [MKNR]: We are focusing on Ingyu. Peter Dias, CEO, Unitech Metalforming Technologies is our Taiwanese partner and we work together in India.
Peter Dias [PD]: We manufacture high precision metal stamping press lines. We integrate these press lines into total solutions for the Indian market.
How is the show IMTEX 2018 panning out for you as of now?
PD: I see a lot of optimism this year. We hope that this optimism is translated into real investments into the future.
What is your view on Mission Make in India? Should the objective be to create jobs or to make India on a global manufacturing hub or both?
PD: If you focus on making jobs, you do not necessarily become global. You have to become a globally competitive manufacture first, only then will the jobs come.
MKNR: If you don’t invest in the right technologies then they we [as a country] we will miss the future.
What are the major challenges that are stopping India from becoming a global manufacturing hub?
PD: Challenges are more to do with the attitude of customers. There is a lack of long-term commitment on part of the government and the large buyers that. Nobody can see the future very clearly. Therefore they can’t make big investments or even for the short term of, say, five years. So
finally who are the people who are making parts? It is small medium enterprises; not the Birlas and the Tatas. Indian is leaning on the SMEs. Most SMEs are families or individual entrepreneurs, who must be given the confidence and the capital to make the right investments
and be sure that their investments are guaranteed for sure and reasonable period.
What are the major industries you are focusing on with Ingyu?
PD: Automotive is number one. We are looking at the high-tech industries, motor manufacturing specially the new electric vehicle motors. India must start working in this direction because our Prime Minister has already conveyed that by 2030 there will be no internal combustion engines anymore. We hope that from Taiwan, we are in a position to pass on the bulk of this technology to the Indian manufacturers. The motor stamping industry has level up into high-efficiency industrial motors and electric vehicles motors.
How do you see the trade partnership between India and Taiwan?
Brenda Tung [BT]: Taiwan is the only country that can actually pass on technology to India. We are very happy that the Narendra Modi government looks beyond the One China Policy (OCP) and believes in strengthening trade ties with Taiwan. We want the ties to go one step further and see a free trade agreement between India and Taiwan. Because right now people in India who want Taiwanese technology are deterred by high custom duties, so the government must make it easier for Indian SMEs to get technologies from Taiwan.
PD: China is our [India’s] competitor; Taiwan is our partner. Taiwan can pass on technologies from manufacturing where they are much ahead of the curve. Taiwan has no [ulterior] aspiration; you can see there are no Taiwan joint venture companies, because we give the technology to the Indian manufacturer. We don’t want to stay here or run the company. So Taiwan has become an excellent technology partner for the Indian SMEs. But SMEs are now are being hindered by a wrong taxation policy which is a remnant of of the One China Policy years. This government will need to make an environment in which the Taiwanese technologies can flourish in India.
How is Magal helping Ingyu to market in India?
MKNR: We have a service sector where people are going to be trained in Ingyu for support. We are starting by selling spare parts and are going forward in the positive direction.
PD: We are also offering technologies and understanding the needs of the SMEs in the industry. Our local partners are very crucial as we are trying to tailor-make our technologies and machines according to the requirements of the Indian SMEs. Visiting small industries, interacting with them when they visit the shows, seeing their aspirations, valuating their technology challenges and then suggesting a solution for them; all of this is very crucial. Our local partner does a lot of work in this regard.
In your opinion, how will Industry 4.0 provide a boost to the Indian manufacturing industry?
MKNR: Industry 4.0 is catching up in the European market but the penetration into the South East Asian markets is not that much.
PD: India has other priorities, information integration is a part of a globalised world but it is not our priority right now. Our priority is to develop our base industry, provide jobs, offer every single engineer who wants to become an entrepreneur with capital and technology in order to become a manufacturer. We need to go in the right directions. Everything has to be a networked and smart industry. Hence, Industry 4.0 is a norm and not a preference but at the moment it is not our priority.
Sales Manager, Ingyu;
M. K. Narasinga Rao, MD,
Magal Engineering.
Picture: Meshmix Media
PD: Well everything in India in the automotive supply chain starts off with local SMEs who supply components. India’s Prime Minister has shared his vision of 2030 regarding the ubiquity of electric vehicles in India. It means that by 2020 we must start manufacturing components, and that is where the Taiwanese companies could work as enablers.
So the Indian SMEs or MSME has to be educated with this kind of technology are there.
PD: Indians are very well aware of all the technological advancements. They frequent travel the world, but when they come back to India, they, especially the SMEs face the [bureaucratic] roadblock that discourages them from bring the latest tech to India. For example it’s a known fact that Taiwan is the 4th largest producer of machine tools in the world. The government of India must give tax sops for people to buy technologies from Taiwan rather than going to China or Malaysia. Every rupee invested in machine tool technology adds to the nation’s manufacturing potential.
MKNR: SMEs will have to, for a change, focus more on technology than the price.
PD: We [India] will have to learn from China that subsidised investment into new technology in the initial years. We had also incentivised investment in our country for so many years but the government took it away. So the small fellow investing here has got no tax benefit; in addition he has got to pay high interest rates and on top of it he does not have the money to make investments. This is not a viable model. We must understand how vital the SMEs are to the Indian economy.
Taiwan offers the most cost effective technologies. Our government must make it easier for Indian SMEs to collaborate with Taiwan’s industry. The window of opportunity is very small, the world is moving ahead. We don’t have ten years to achieve this. It is for us now increase and seize this chance and take the opportunity to become the global leader of manufacturing.
You think that India has the potential to become the global manufacturing hub?
MKNR: Indians are among the smartest people with sound engineering skills and are very fast to grasp technology. Even if you give the guys from the villages and train them as technicians, they pick up very fast in one-two years. They only need to be given a proper platform and the right direction.
PD: We see in this exhibition the curiosity of the young people looking at this technology with curiosity and aspiration. Very few countries can boast of this demographic – we have this large young talent pool of energetic, ambitious people which is our strength. They will leave and go to USA or go somewhere else if we don’t give them a chance to become a part of the growth story of this country.
Anything specific you want to say about Ingyu to our readers?
PD: We have been present here in India for about 30 years. We have seen a time when the investment cost was very high. We have a longstanding commitment to this country and we will continue to drive the technology and innovations to contribute to mission Make in India.
