One of the biggest automobile manufacturers, Honda, plans to develop India as a major manufacturing base for its engineering products for the world market, stated Katsutoshi Hirose, Vice President & Director (Manufacturing), Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) Private Limited, at the Imtex-2001 show. According to him, the opening of the Indian market and the ongoing reform process encouraged the choice of India as a premier location for manufacturing facilities for Honda.

While Honda is all set to launch its scooter by June end, he said that more than 97 per cent of its parts/components shall be procured locally. The production at HMSI's fully integrated plant at Manesar, near New Delhi would commence from May end, he added. With an aim to indigenise its operations in terms of materials, machines and manpower, Hirose stated, "our outlook has been to localise machines, use Indian raw material and parts, employ local staff, do business in India, get our products accepted and expand our business." It is the availability of substantial human resource capabilities that has encouraged multinational and global companies to confirm India as an important manufacturing base.

Referring to the invasion of Chinese goods in Asia and worldwide, Hirose said that Honda's scooter to be launched soon would be an "Anti-Chinese Invader". And it was in this regard that the company was endeavouring to launch its scooter at a very competitive rate through collaborations with Indian machine tool manufacturers and other component vendors, he stated.

Not only was Honda looking at strengthening its businesses in the Indian domestic market but was also looking forward to export from India and compete with China in the global marketplace, he said.

Further elaborating, Hirose said that as demonstrated at Imtex-2001, the Indian machine tool industry had moved closer than before to contemporary metal working technologies by imbibing and locally developing substitutes for advanced technologies from the other parts of the world. However, he added that Indian industry needs o improve its quality, reliability, and delivery and embrace world class benchmarks of workmanship and time bound deliverance. He also recommended the industry representatives present during the Imtex-2001 to adopt a concept of after sales service for machines, as this would aid in maintenance of machine at user end and also further the relationship with the customer.