Economic Rebound Good News for Manufacturing

Dear Readers,

Last year brought forth a testing time for industries and individuals. On a brighter note, the country’s economy, Manufacturing, and the Machine Tool industry, having shown great resilience in the face of acute adversity, are already on the recovery path. The vaccines for Covid-19 have also made their way out from research labs and entered public domain, providing the much-needed relief and confidence.

The Government of India, stepping in at the right time, has played its part, by giving impetus to capital expenditure in the budget, creating a new path for medium- to long-term growth. As per Press Information Bureau, the capex budget was raised sharply from `4.12 lakh crore to `5.54 lakh crore, a record increase of 34.5 percent over the last financial year. Larger outlays in various sectors of Manufacturing and Corporate Tax, which is the lowest in the world for setting up new manufacturing units, are growth drivers of economy and in supporting these, the budget has made a fair effort to ignite investment-led growth. The increase in budget outlay for Railways, Power, Infrastructure, and so on is expected to increase the demand for capital goods and machine tools.

India is slowly recovering from the pandemic, and almost all activities are back to the pre-Covid levels in a short period. One primary factor for the rebound has been the pent-up demand, and PLI in the Auto sector, bringing in business to champion sectors, besides the relaxations in FDI. The Machine Tool industry now needs to expand its wings to tap the opportunities in the emerging sectors and explore new areas of growth.

Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA) is organizing ‘IMTEX 2021 & Tooltech 2021’ in June this year, with Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) being ready to host the show with all SOPs in place. IMTEX will be one of the first major shows to be organized post the pandemic lockdown, and the success of the show will pave way for many more events. I am sure we all are keenly awaiting to physically interact with our customers, which was unfortunately restricted for close to a year due to the pandemic.

Well, as we move to the new financial year in April, things are likely to change. I firmly believe that IMTEX 2021 and other initiatives of IMTMA will provide a suitable platform for the Machine Tool and Manufacturing industries to network and exchange knowledge and scale up business activities.

Wishing you all the very best.

Indradev Babu
President
Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA)