Taiwanese businesses are exploring opportunities in the Indian domestic market as 180 companies, including five Indian firms, showcase their products at 240 booths at this year’s TAITRONICS India.
This represents growth of nearly 130 percent and 116 percent respectively in the number of exhibitors and booths, compared with last year’s show, organizer Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) said yesterday after opening the three-day trade show in Chennai, India.
By noon, around 450 corporate visitors and buyers had visited the business-to-business industrial trade show, it added.
Some US$100 million in deals could be closed at the show to add to the annual trade volume between Taiwan and India worth US$620 million, Ong Wenchyi (翁文祺), Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) representative in New Delhi, said on the sidelines of the trade show yesterday.
“Growth potential [for Taiwanese businesses] could rocket in coming years,” he said. “The Indian market has shown no signs of contracting in the next decade.”
Electronic machinery, public infrastructure and agricultural reprocessing businesses stand a better chance of benefiting from the growth in the Indian domestic market, Ong added.
The de facto ambassador also boasts the fine quality of Taiwanese machine parts at a price 10 percent lower than those of Japanese or German competitors.
Bilateral trade between Taiwan and India has expanded substantially since 2007, when an investment protection agreement was inked to provide protection and official assistance to businesses from both countries. Meanwhile, a double-taxation relief agreement is under negotiation and likely to receive approval from the two sides by early next year, Ong said.
M. F. Farooqui, principal secretary of the industries department in the government of Tamil Nadu, urged Taiwanese businesses to join South Korean and Japanese counterparts in establishing a presence in India.
To facilitate Taiwanese business, he told the trade show’s opening ceremony that his government is prepared to provide between 100 hectares and 150 hectares of land as an industrial park for Taiwanese companies.
“I assure you a responsive and transparent government,” he said.
Unfamiliar with the Indian market, first-time exhibitors from Taiwan yesterday said that they need to run more feasibility studies before committing to it.
Sijhih (汐止), Taipei County-based Zeeman Industry Co (錦慈企業) yesterday said that if the fuse-making company can attract business from Indian auto part distributors supplying big brand manufacturers such as Hyundai Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp, it would set up a factory in India soon, company general manager James Cheng (鄭金池) told the Taipei Times yesterday.
“[My] initial investment here may exceed US$3 million,” he said.
Executives from tube-maker Chi Bin Machine Co (奇賓機械) and niche computer manufacturer Twinhead International Corp (倫飛電腦), said that they hope to locate Indian buyers for export business.
To Indian buyers, however, pricing could be a concern although most of them agreed that Taiwan-made products are of better quality than locally manufactured equivalents.
C. Naveen Kumar, purchasing manager of Dynamic Research Systems, said that he found Taiwanese IT networking products are “20 percent more expensive than he expected.”
He added a solution will need to be found for the pricing concerns before local buyers would place orders.
A. Stephenraj, business development manager of Pee Pee Appliance Private Ltd, said his company is searching for advanced consumer electronic products such as LCD TVs or handsets to cater to local customers.
If Taiwan-made products meet requirements, pricing could be less of a concern, he added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
REACTIONS: While most analysts were positive about TSMC’s investment, one said the US expansion could disrupt the company’s supply-demand balance Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) new US$100 billion investment in the US would exert a positive effect on the chipmaker’s revenue in the medium term on the back of booming artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from US chip designers, an International Data Corp (IDC) analyst said yesterday. “This is good for TSMC in terms of business expansion, as its major clients for advanced chips are US chip designers,” IDC senior semiconductor research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠瑋) said by telephone yesterday. “Besides, those US companies all consider supply chain resilience a business imperative,” Zeng said. That meant local supply would
BIG INVESTMENT: Hon Hai is building the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art AI chips, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said The construction of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) massive artificial intelligence (AI) server plant near Guadalajara, Mexico, would be completed in a year despite the threat of new tariffs from US President Donald Trump, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus said. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is investing about US$900 million in what would become the world’s largest assembly plant for servers based on Nvidia Corp’s state-of-the-art GB200 AI chips, Lemus said. The project consists of two phases: the expansion of an existing Hon Hai facility in the municipality of El Salto, and the construction of a
RSS