Strengthening ties with Taiwan - a futuristic approach to boost manufacturing in India

India is leaving no stone unturned to become a global manufacturing hub. In the backdrop of the recent geopolitical shifts, rising aspirations of people in India and the industry itself, the intention of the government and the industry is extremely clear i.e., to go beyond assembling goods in the country, which means improving backward integration. ?The need of the hour is to focus on manufacturing components in the country.?This will be a catalyst in making us globally competitive and enabling exports. And the next step towards scaling our component manufacturing capabilities is to find the right enablers.

While India has its own local capabilities, however, with collective wisdom and technology partnerships with foreign entities from South East India, especially Japan, Korea and Taiwan, moving the needle is possible.

Taiwan happens to be one of the economies which can be a logical and a natural partner for India when it comes to enabling backward integration, through its robust component manufacturing ecosystem for electronics and my recent visit to Taiwan was a testimony of the same. And this is fundamentally because of several innovations both in the large organisation space and the SME/MSMEs enterprise space as well that have taken place in Taiwan. In the large organisation space, we all know that how companies of Taiwan like TSMC, world's dedicated semiconductor foundry since 1987, commands a very large share of semiconductors globally. Companies like TSMC and other fabrication companies of Taiwan have been creating impact around the world and not only in the large, medium and small organisation spaces. With the rich and diverse experience, they’ve become a suitable choice for India to invite large investments in the semiconductor and display fabrication spaces. Parallelly, India should also enable a plethora of partnerships in the industry there to unlock the potential of component manufacturing to happen in the country.

On my recent 2-day visit to Taipei, I also learnt many things from my Taiwanese counterparts. Not only have we mutually succeeded in a creating a framework or the fundamental understanding of the areas of synergy but even the way the dialogue and follow up between manufacturing industry and ecosystem needs to be managed from the perspective of execution in the coming years.

The current visit to Taiwan had a delegation of 52 professionals from India comprising of industry stalwarts, entrepreneurs, representatives from government and chambers. The multi-layer engagement program was organised by Taiwan in association with FICCI spread across 2 days in the sidelines of the large-scale industry event Taitronics, one of the world’s largest component exhibition. Taitronics presented immense opportunities for the Indian delegation to explore technologies and potential partners from Taiwan.

Engagements across the 2-day visit were handled by 3 different chambers of Taiwan.

The 20th Taiwan-India Joint Business Council Meeting was organised by FICCI & CEICA (Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association) and delegations from both sides got an opportunity to make presentations about their strengths and opportunities. The presentations made by the Taiwanese delegation on semiconductors and smart solutions were a learning opportunity for the Indian delegation. The presentations from the Indian delegation focused on the enablers which exist in India for the Taiwanese companies to come and invest in India.

The second engagement where I chaired the 2nd India-Taiwan CEOs Roundtable was a memorable moment for me. It culminated with the signing of a successful Joint Declaration between TAITRA and FICCI.

Further to realize the potential of both Taiwan and India to achieve broader growth in the electronics manufacturing sector through technological transfer or joint-investment, following were the highlights of the joint declaration.

1.?????? CEOs were encouraged to not only Make in India, but enable export orientation by strengthening backward integration.

2.?????? Crucial sectors were highlighted as Electronics manufacturing ICT, E-Mobility, Healthcare, Smart poles etc.

3.?????? Facilitating collaboration between Indian and Taiwanese conglomerates to enable Smart Manufacturing.

4.?????? Collaborate in the area of Innovation, research and Knowledge property.

The signing of the Joint Declaration was a matter of pride for me on behalf of the Indian delegation in the presence of the Shri Rajesh Kumar Singh, the Secretary of DPIIT, Mr. James C. F. Huang, Co-Chair (Taiwan) India-Taiwan CEOs Round Table Chairman, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and Dy. Minister of Economy, Taiwan.

The third and final engagement was the India-Taiwan Industrial Collaboration Summit, which was meant to share the opportunities, policies and knowledge which exist in India and Taiwan with the larger audience. The event was attended by the entire Indian delegation and many members of large and medium sized enterprises of Taiwan.

The presentation made on future of 5G and 6G technologies by Mr. Gene Chuang, from WNC Technologies, from Taiwan delegation stuck with me. Presentations by the Indian counterparts focused on the country increasing ease of doing business, various policies, and the partnerships which Indian small and medium companies can offer to Taiwanese counterparts etc.

I have been able to draw 3 conclusions from my engagements in Taiwan.

1.?????? There is immense promise in India and Taiwan which is untapped. We have to continue such engagements objectively over many years in the time to come. While 5 MoUs were signed on the sidelines of the roundtable, we expect this number and quality to go up consistently in the time to come.

2.?????? The professionalism, time management, meticulous understanding and articulation, remarkable planning, and thoughtfulness of the Taiwan counterparts in organising the engagements was absolutely spectacular to witness. And, there is a massive learning opportunity for us.

3.?????? The expectations and the proposal which we made to our Taiwanese counterparts reflected that India is an opportunity and they should look at utilising this opportunity and building their capabilities in India.

?#WeekendMusing