Beware of Chinese dumping, warns CE industry

The declining sales of construction and earthmoving equipment machines in China will have a significant impact in the domestic market, according to Excon 2015 Chairman Vipin Sondhi.

Briefing reporters here on Tuesday at the Excon 2015 curtain-raiser event, Sondhi urged the government to regulate two ports through which second-hand construction and earthmoving equipment are imported, so that we will have data. They should be subjective to the same emission norms as the Indian industry. We are subjected to Bharat Stage III.

“China has gone down significantly. In future, dumping by China will certainly impact our sales in the domestic market,” Sondhi said.

He explains, “After three years of degrowth, construction equipment has stabilised...which means 2015 has witnessed some stability. It is going to be a ‘U’-shaped recovery rather than a ‘V’-shaped recovery. The recovery will happen in the next financial year (2016-17) and then gather momentum. I think one sector which will be major driver is the roads and highways. Road construction is a driver of economic activity — it will create demand for steel, cement. With more projects getting a kick-start, demand will gather speed.”

The Roads and Highways Ministry has been empowered to approve projects with civil construction cost up to Rs 1,000 crore, while taking out of the cost land. NHAI has been allowed to compensate developers for delay not attributable to them. Sondhi said, “Numerous stalled projects as well as new ones will no doubt receive a massive impetus from these policy changes.”

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is organising  Excon 2015 — South Asia’s largest exhibition of Construction Equipment (CE) — from  November 25-29, 2015, at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, (BIEC).

With the theme, ‘Make India — Building Infrastructure, Building the Nation’, the eighth edition of the premier event for the CE industry will see participation of over 800 exhibitors, including 270 overseas companies.

Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate Excon 2015 Exhibition at 5 pm. With a current size of $2.8 billion, the Indian construction equipment industry is expected to grow to $5 billion by 2019-20. The after-sales spares market is about $800 million and is a major source of income and employment opportunity for SSI manufacturers and service providers, he added.

ICEMA, an affiliate body of the CII, will host a two-day Conference on ‘Rebooting Infrastructure’ with the theme  ‘Build India for a Better Tomorrow’ coinciding with Excon 2015 during  November 26-27 at BIEC, Bangalore.