Wipro-ge JV to invest ~8K cr to ‘Make in India for the World’

Wipro GE Healthcare, a leading medical technology, diagnostics, and digital solutions joint venture between Wipro and GE Healthcare, aims to increase localisation in manufacturing in the country from 50 per cent currently to 70–80 per cent.

This initiative comes alongside an announcement made on Tuesday regarding a fresh investment of ~8,000 crore in the next five years to bolster its focus not only on ‘Make in India’ but also on ‘Make in India for the World’.

The products slated for export include positron emission tomographycomputed tomography (PET-CT) used for cancer diagnosis, CT, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) coils.

In an interview with Elie Chaillot, president and chief executive officer of GE Healthcare International, “‘Made in India for the World’ emerges as our new focus, with an aim to deepen our supply chain. Across our product range, the average localisation stands at 50 per cent, and we aspire to incrementally increase this figure by 10–15 per cent annually until reaching 70– 80 per cent.” Elaborating on the localisation drive, Chaillot notes that India is as competitive as China in terms of labour costs. However, importing components from China to India could prove more expensive, hence the preference for procuring locally in India.

Chaillot emphasises India’s existing scale, a factor enabling such high levels of localisation. This level of localisation is not feasible in many other countries due to limitations in scale or ecosystem — exceptions being China, possibly the US, and Japan. “The Indian market is expanding. Despite Japan having a population of 120 million compared to India’s 1.4 billion, our addressable market in Japan matches that of India. Hence, India holds the potential for tenfold growth, positioning it as a global hub-maker,” says Chaillot. Wipro GE Healthcare has identified over 15 countries for exporting its machines manufactured in India. These include Southeast Asia, experiencing singledigit growth, Eastern Europe, necessitating products with similar technology locally manufactured, the European Union replacement market, and the entire Latin American market.