In a exclusive interview with Business Today TV Managing Editor Siddharth Zarabi, Hitachi India MD Bharat Kaushal calls India a curious mix across infrastructure, manufacturing and digital. From a cost-to-cost market to calling the shots, India has seen a rapid change, he says on the sidelines of WEF 2024.
Kaushal says India provides a humongous opportunity for global firms. "10-15 years ago, when Hitachi made huge investments, India was a cost to cost market. You made higher margins overseas. Now, with India redefining itself, its volumes have helped amortise costs in such a unique way that you are automatically competitive".
Kaushal calls India an outlier amid geopolitical and economic tentativeness. "It is growing the other way... a very, very smart and explosive way across so many different sectors. Digital has already transformed India's image from being a follower country to a leader. Green is the new frontier with capital goods and capacity building which people are not talking elsewhere in the world."
Kaushal said his firm was deeply involved in modernising India, especially in the rail sector. "We are working on a proprietary technology owned by Hitachi and Kawasaki. It was launched in 2014 in Japan 50 years after the bullet train was invented."
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