Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

“There is no problem in power generation in India!”

Dipak Dasgupta, Principal Economic Adviser - Ministry of Finance, in an interview with Sray Agarwal and Ganesh K Roy, on reforms for infrastructure and transport

How do you feel about the Indian Economy right now?
Dipak Dasgupta (DD): There is no doubt that the Indian economy has slowed down and the reason for this is a function of strategy failure and that the investors have lost their confidence. The last year scenario also has not been favorable; but this is not a new thing rather it’s the investment cycle which remains in every developing economy all around the world. That [investment cycle] is what drives the course of any economy. At the same time, the problems in Europe and US have hampered the growth of many countries and we are not alone. China too is going through this phase. The last time we had that cycle was in the year 2008. Export markets are growing very badly. We also need a logistics revolution so that growth can been accelerated. Despite having poor infrastructure, we have been able to grow at such a high rate; but now we need a major infrastructure revolution so that we can again reach to the erstwhile levels. Ours is a large landlocked country, which is much like a continent; so we need to connect all the corridors to achieve better growth. But we don’t have that kind of a system right now in our country. We have a young population which will help us to grow in the long run. We need more public private partnerships in India to make things better. There is a huge skills gap between public and private firms – which makes it imperative for the PPP model to flourish in India. We are in a marathon race and not in a 100 metres race; so we need long term plans which will enhance our economy. 

Power failures, time overruns, cost overruns, are the indicators of structural flaws in the economy. How do you think India can overcome these hurdles?
DD: Power generation is growing at 8.8 % in India. In fact, contrary to the general perception, there are huge power plants coming up in India; this shows the level of development that we are going through. Yes, here we have a system where some states are producing huge amount of power and some are not and the demand is also not equal in each state. There is no problem at the production end; rather, we have a problem at the distribution end and in the channels. We have built a state of the art facility in the field of power generation so there is no problem at the generation part.

But the slowdown did not happen overnight. Do you think the government’s policy paralysis added on to this situation?
DD: We need to do things every day because doing things once in a year won’t do well for any economy. We need to bring in reforms every now and then so that the growth story is kept on going. In the government sector, incentives are less and performance parameter are also not standardized. Politicians respond to what the electorate wants. How to make the public sector work better is the challenge. A strong leadership is the need of the hour.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
 
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, February 11, 2013

Its overseas expansion

Satobumi Taguchi, Deputy General Manager (Paper Trade Dept.), Overseas Division, Nippon Paper Group, Japan, talks to B&E’s Gyanendra Kumar Kashyap & Ashutosh Harbola about Nippon’s vision 2015 and its overseas expansion.

B&E: You were mulling to buy an Australian firm. Has the deal been materialised?
(ST): Australia has a commercial publishing market with sustainable growth and low domestic productiom ratio. We have acquired the firm (Paper Australia from PaperlinX) for $459.98 million. While the completion of the deal provides us an opportunity to expand our business into Australia, we will certainly plan to leverage from the deal to create a global presence.

B&E: You import 9% of soft wood and 60% of hard wood from different countries and a big chunk comes from Australia. Don’t you think Nippon is too much relying on Australia?
(ST): As far as Nippon is concerned, about 14% of the total supplies were met from our own plant. Furhter, I feel there is no such relation of dependence on any specific country. Buying is a different factor, but due to our presence in different categories like pulp manufacturing, paper mills etc, we have a wider pool to choose from. Australia is a big supplier and we have great relations with that country. Also, the deepening relationship with PaperlinX will contribute to our overseas expansion in the near future.

B&E: The demand of pulp supply is shifting from North America and Europe to Asia. Don’t you think China is coming up as a big competitor?
(ST): So far as the Asian market is concerned, we export to Singapore and other Asian countries. This is a part of our strategy and precisely a weak-link as far as China is concerned.

B&E: Of late, prices of soft wood and hard wood have risen to $1,000 and $850 per tonne respectively. Don’t you think these high purchasing cost is affecting your profit margins?
(ST): It’s not the soft wood or hard wood, prices of other raw materials and shipping costs have also risen significantly. Be it fuel or anything. But, what gives us an advantage is that we are not only in papers, but also into manufacturing pulp. That’s why our profit margins are not that affected.

B&E: The paper and pulp industry can get into bio-fuels that could solve a lot of power needs and even economical also. Your comments?
(ST): I think this is the next big thing a paper and pulp industry should get into. In fact, more and more renewable energy sources can be created and as our responsibility to the nature, we also need to pay attention to that point.

B&E: Have you ever thought on issues like recycling?
(ST): We are already recycling our paper. we recycle almost 100% of our newspapers and 50% of magazine paper as we understand that these are limited resources which can be conserved by recycling.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)