India can be an export hub: Ronald 'ron' Defeo

Ronald 'ron' Defeo, Chairman and Chief Executive of Terex, the $4.5-billion construction equipment giant, visited India recently. He took time out for an interaction with BT's Rahul Sachitanand in between meetings with clients. Edited excerpts:

India, China and Brazil are our three fastest growing regions. We currently get around a third of our business from what we term emerging economies , and in the future almost 50 per cent of our business will come from them as we intensify our focus on this region.

We think India can be a billion-dollar business in 10 years for us because of the boom in construction. Terex is committed to investing and expanding in India. We have opened a production line for cranes in Hosur, expanding beyond crushers. We also have a factory in Noida, which makes backhoe loaders and is playing a central role in devising smaller and cheaper backhoe loaders for emerging markets. Eventually, we want to make our India factories export hubs.

Among our competitors, JCB is the oldest and most recognised brand in the Indian market, and they took an early bet and made large investments here. Many of our other global rivals, too, are here, such as Caterpillar and Volvo Construction, and are scaling up operations. However, we think we are expanding at the right time.