Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur)

‘I could not manufactur­e in India 3 yrs ago... Now I can very effectivel­y’

- Amrit Raj amrit.r@livemint.com

John Chambers,

67, the executive chairman of Cisco has been a long-time supporter of India and is an admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, he says, gets it when it comes to creating a digital country. Chambers was in India to announce the creation of the US-India Strategic Partnershi­p Forum (USISPF) which he says will take the relationsh­ip between the two countries, their companies, and their people, to the next level. Excerpts from an interview. I think India has some most advanced digital vision and strategy in the world. I see the prime minister as one of the top leaders that I have ever met in my life. He has got a vision and a strategy and he knows how to execute them.

India tends to be critical of itself and I think that faster people buy the vision and understand what’s possible (the better). That’s how you move to a speed that is equal with others. Absolutely! I could not manufactur­e in India three years ago; (it was) not an option. I can now manufactur­e in India very effectivel­y. We have opened our plants. Now, we have to see how do we get the efficienci­es where we can use India as an export engine.

India is our second headquarte­rs. Every time we bet on India... 1997, we bet in a big way on India. We made it our second headquarte­rs and later we made it our digitisati­on headquarte­rs. 40% of our engineerin­g head count is of Indian ancestry. So, we are very optimistic about India. India was our top country last year from the sales side. It is our great source in terms of talent and not labour arbitrage.

 ?? MINT/FILE ?? John Chambers
MINT/FILE John Chambers

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