Growth with responsibility is the mantra - Mr Goenka

According to Mr Pawan Goenka president of SIAM ‘Growth with responsibility' is the new mantra for the newly elected SIAM President.

Mr Goenka who succeeded Mr Ravi Kant of the TATA Group plans to carve out a separate niche for the Indian auto industry globally. He told reporters that ''Over all brand building of auto industry outside India holds the key as we need to create an identity of products being manufactured here.”

Mr Goenka said that Indian auto industry is projected to grow up to USD 145 billion by 2016 but this growth has its own negativities adding that a collective effort has to be made so that it causes minimal harm. He said that ''Auto growth has its own disadvantages as it leads to pollution and adds to the global warming more over it also creates road safety problems we have to see that it causes minimal negative affect.

Speaking about the previous fiscal's performance he said that ''FY09 was bad for most of the companies...though I don't know about the profit level of MNC's but over all Indian players did not have a good year.'' However he said that the first quarter of the current fiscal has been good for most of the players and expressed hope that the performance may be repeated in Q2FY10.

Mr Goenka said that ''Q1 of FY 10 has been good for most of the producers mainly on account internal improvement, good volumes and commdity prices coming down adding that there is no reason why Q2 shouldn't be good.

He said that the turnaround in the last six months has been a cumulative efforts of various factors like excise reduction, cheaper availability of credit and commodity prices being back at April'08 level which has helped few manufacturers to reduce their prices which has further pushed up sales.

The auto industry has a committed investment of USD 32 billion spanning between 2008-12 from its various stakeholders, though some of the players in the recent past have withheld their plans owing to the global meltdown. He said that ''Its very important to keep the investment flowing in the sector though some of the manufacturers have curtailed their plans but over all the industry is committed towards the growth.”

On the industry growth projections, Mr Goenka said that its unlikely that the passenger car segment in the country will attain a double digit growth as during the last six months it has hovered around 6% to 7%. He said that ''The present growth is around 6% to 7% in the last six months...hard for me to say if it will be in double digit.”

(Sourced from www.steelguru.com)

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