Not too long ago, made-in-India cars were a hit in global markets. Maruti Ertiga, Toyota Etios, Ford Figo and EcoSport, and Hyundai i10 were segment leaders in markets as varied as Indonesia, South Africa, Algeria and Colombia. However, passenger vehicle exports have declined over 4 per cent in this fiscal, owing partly to the fact that major export destinations are no longer growing.
For relatively smaller players Nissan, Ford and Volkswagen, the delays in transfer of GST credit under the new tax regime is a massive setback. Estimates suggest that the pending amount the government needs to pay these companies has crossed `1,000 crore. While exports may take a beating for the rest of this fiscal, India's longterm potential as a low-cost production base remains intact. The problems of fiscal 2017/18 may just be a blip.
Sumant Banerji