Canon India is looking at setting up a manufacturing plant in India. This follows the recent initiatives taken by the Government to establish electronic hardware manufacturing clusters in the country and incentivise manufacturing.

However, the Japan-based company said it will not decide in a hurry, as it wants the facility to also be an export hub. The company, at present, imports 100 per cent of the products it sells in India.

“We have started checking the infrastructure opportunity and benefits. It is a very basic field study we are doing. According to our company policy, we are not interested in establishing a hardware factory (copier, scanners) only for the sake of that country,” Kazutada Kobayashi, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canon India, told Business Line.

He said though India is not much into electronic hardware manufacturing right now, but with the new policies in place, the country may do good in the next 10 years.

He said, when the company decides to set up a plant in India, it will produce for the export market as well, particularly the West.

“For example, our inkjet printers’ factory which has over 10,000 workers in Vietnam does not produce products only for Vietnam, but exports as well,” he said.

He said the company is doing studies on the infrastructure, parts supply (as many parts suppliers should also be in place), export and import leniency on parts and products, logistics and skilled labours.

“Logistics and quality of workers are very important, particularly because our industry is different which is known as precision machine industry, slightly different from other manufacturers such as bikes and cars,” Kobayashi said.

“The Government aims to achieve a turnover of around $400-billion from the electronic hardware industry at an investment of about $100 billion and provide employment to around 28 million by 2020.

>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

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