Chinese investors may give investment in India a highbrow but Taiwan seeks to beef up its response and foothold in this large, young consumer market. To counter Chinese investments Taiwan is likely to lead investments of more than $10 billion to make India its business partner.
“A large Taiwanese chemical firm alone is setting up a $10 billion investment in the southern part of India, to make polypropulene raw materials for making plastic,” said James Kuo, deputy executive director of Taiwan External Trade Development Council.
Kuo said that along side investments by firms in the chemical sector, Taiwanese companies are also seeking 'Indian partners' for investments in sectors like Information and Communications Technology (ICT), virtual reality (VR), shoes, and even in the manufacturing of iPhones by Foxconn, the Taiwan based iPhone manufacturer.
Apparently, Foxconn is also 'on the way' with their India investments and are short of acquiring land for building facilities. The company is looking at Hyderabad and Bangalore primarily for setting up their manufacturing unit.
Stating the objective of the Taiwan government, Kuo, a spokesperson from the external trade department, said: “we have transformed in the last few years from hardware manufacturers to developing products using artifical intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and virtual reality (VR).”
“We need India as a partner for its trained manpower in software who are working all across the world. If we partner with Indian companies we would be able to participate in government tenders for smart cities,” said Kuo.
India had last year signed an economic cooperation agreement with Taiwan, under which Taiwanese companies are allowed to acquire a majority stake in their Indian partner firms. “It is a win-win situation for both India and Taiwan,” he said.
India and Taiwan has an annual bilateral trade which currently stands at $3 billion per annum. “We expect this to go up by many times on the back of our fresh investments and exports to be generated out of India,” said Kuo.
Aiming to seek out capable partners in India, Taiwanese businesses are going to participate in three trade expositions to be held across India. One of them, Computex, is already reputed to be the best technology show around the world.
Taiwan is expected to have expositions Smart Asia, based on smart city products, and another one to draw India's interest in tying up with Taiwanese businesses.