About 200 American companies planning to move manufacturing units from China to India: USISP

In a big boost to India’s ambitions to become a manufacturing hub, around 200 American companies are planning to soon move their manufacturing units from China to India. The US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum’s (USISPF) President Mukesh Aghi claimed that these companies have approached them to enquire about setting up an alternative to China by investing in India.

The top US-based advocacy group observed that this could be a fantastic opportunity for India to achieve its goal to become a manufacturing hub. Due to the ongoing trade-war between the US and China, American companies are suffering and therefore, they are looking for an alternative to the Communist giant.

Aghi said that the USISPF would advise the new government to accelerate the reforms and bring transparency in the decision-making process “We would advise to bring more transparency in the process and to make it more consultative because in the last 12 to 18 months, we are seeing US companies look at some of the decisions being made, either e-commerce or data localisation, as more domestic-oriented than global,” PTI news agency quoted him as saying.

In his reply to what the agenda of the new Indian government should be to attract investment, Aghi suggested that New Delhi needs to accelerate reforms, be more transparent in the process and engage more.

"We need to understand how we can attract those companies. And that means all the way from land issues to customs issues to being part of the global supply chain. Those are critical issues. There’s a whole plethora of reforms that need to go further down, and I think that is also going to create a lot of jobs," he said.

Aghi said that they have formed a high-level manufacturing council within the member companies, led by John Kern, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Operations at Cisco who are putting a document together detailing what India needs to do to turn it into a manufacturing hub.

(With PTI inputs)