GE plans to make India a global sourcing hub

By siliconindia   |   Saturday, 15 December 2007, 14:48 IST
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New Delhi: GE plans to make India as the centre of its all core business. The company has decided to manufacture and develop products in India for the global market and is planning to partner in projects in some areas like energy, water, aviation and rail transport. "Manufacturing will be a big focus for us in India, we want to utilize our global scale, processes and technologies to take advantage of the cost-competitive engineering skills in India," said Tejpreet Singh Chopra, President and CEO, GE India. Products developed in India can compete in the global market, said Chopra, by citing an example of a mobile electro-cardiogram, developed in GE's John F Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore which costs a fraction of what existing machines cost. "We can even sell it for use at home in the U.S.," said Chopra, adding, "We solve unique problems here as over 300 million people live at less than $1 a day. The innovation coming out of this country in terms of technology as well as business models can help us in whatever we do." GE employs about 4,500 scientists in Bangalore center and has five manufacturing facilities in the country. GE India's target is to achieve the target of $8 billion by 2010 and hopes to close the current year with a turnover of $2.8 billion. The company has sold its plastics business worldwide to Sabic. Chopra said GE would also expand its media (NBC Universal) and enterprise solutions businesses (security, sensing and others) in the country in the days to come, though these would be smaller than its three main lines of business infrastructure, healthcare and services.