GE will invest Rs 1,000 crore in Pune facility

The global technology & engineering conglomerate — General Electric (GE) is investing $200 million (Rs 1,000 crore) in a new technology development-cum-manufacturing facility at Chakan near Pune.

This was disclosed at a press meet, in Bangalore, on Monday, by GE’s global Chairman & CEO Jeffrey R Immelt. He was here to take part at the annual GE India Tech Fest being held at the company’s R&D campus at Whitefield. At the Pune facility, among other things, GE plans to make healthcare equipments, gas engines and also assemble and test wind turbines, mainly for the Indian market. “We are investing big money in India because we have big plans here,” Immelt said. “All our major business have footprint in India. We are seeing robust growth, have a good team in place and I think we shall capture good market share with our products too.” Asked if outsourcing of manufacturing by US companies to developing countries is leading to backlash in his own country, Immelt said the issue of outsourcing is no longer important today. It is ‘local sourcing’ that is catching up, he said. “We moved to India and in China not so much for outsourcing productions, but for making products for the local markets,” he said. India’s vast population, the expanding middle class and good economic growth offers excellent business potential, he said. But he also added that infrastructure and bureaucracy are the biggest challenges for the country and the government agencies need to become more transparent in policy matters. GE employs 14,000 people in India, its R&D centre in Bangalore which employs 4,000 people is the largest such facility outside USA and the company more than 1,000 patents filed from India with 140 granted. The company’s Hyderabad R&D centre also employs 1,000 technicians. Talking about the ensuing global financial crisis from Europe, Immelt said he is not unduly worried because the strong economic growth from emerging countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia etc, can compensate for the economic downturn in some developed countries. In the US, where Immelt is part of President Obama’s Job Council, the focus now is to re-train and re-skill Americans to make them suitable for close to two million job opportunities that have opened up. Since US is spending heavily on infrastructure projects, the sector offers a lot of job opportunities, he said.