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Chinese machines not up to the mark, says industry

Chinese machines make inroads into Indian industry

Even as Chinese textile machinery is considered to be of a lower quality than Indian and other machinery makes, it has begun making in-roads into India. This is mainly due to the low prices, and in some cases commensurate or higher productivity. If this trend strengthens, it could further hurt the Indian machinery manufacturers who are already facing stiff competition. Reena Mital and Sudha Swaminathan report.

Till some years back, Chinese textile machinery was considered to be of inferior quality, and despite the low prices, the Indian textile mills were not going in for Chinese machinery. But the situation is now different, and China’s textile technology has improved tremendously, according to sources.

Speaking to Express Textile, Mr Rajesh Mehra, director, Param Machinery, agent for Chinese and Taiwanese machinery manufacturers, “The fact is that today, the basic machine, the metallurgy, electronic components from China are far superior than indigenous machinery. But yes, there are different levels of quality in China, and one has to be careful about sourcing from the right manufacturers. And if a machinery buyer tries to bargain hard, chances are that he would end up with a low quality machine. A number of leading German, Japanese and other machinery manufacturers have set up manufacturing base in China due to the low labour costs, etc, and are doing very well there.

So China has the capability of manufacturing high quality machines, and is doing so.”

According to experts, the advantage with China is that it is able to adapt to technology very fast, which is why it has attracted a lot of foreign investments in this sector. “As against this, foreign players are not very keen to set up base in India, or to enter into joint ventures,” they state.

Sources inform that some of the Indian machinery makers have started importing the machines from China, tag the machines and sell them in the Indian market. Says Mr Mehra, “There is very good potential for Chinese machinery in India. In certain sectors like printing, weaving, manufacturing fancy yarns, garmenting, embroidery, etc, some of the Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers have captured almost 15-20 per cent of the market, over the last year and a half. And growth rate for such machines is almost 10-15 per cent per annum.”

However, in sectors like fibre and textile testing equipments, Indian manufacturers have made better headway than the Chinese machinery manufacturers. “China does manufacture testing machinery for the spinning industry but most of the machines are confined only to China. They have not penetrated into other markets. Their quality attributes and technical features do not match with the ones produced in India. Textile testing machinery is not a price-elastic segment. Despite being economical than Indian machines, mills in India as well as abroad do not invest in Chinese machines. They don’t mind spending an extra buck to get the right product. And we don’t expect the Chinese to come in a big way in this segment,” says Mr S Thirupathi, VP, marketing, Premier Polytronics. The company is marketing its products in more than 35 countries including China.

For the garment industry, most of the technology like knitting, processing and sewing machines comes from USA or European countries. Either India has hardly any presence in this segment or the proportion of Indian machines to western machines is very less. The stipulation of the foreign buyers to employ technology from the western countries acts as a hindrance to the small timers in these segments to make a dent in the market.

“Western countries were the early birds to penetrate in the Indian market. Only recently the Chinese are trying to market sewing and knitting machines in India. We have not seen any players from China in processing and finishing areas. We prefer to work with European or Japanese technology than with Chinese machines. In terms of quality and productivity, Chinese machines rank next to European and Japanese. In case of knitting Chinese machines are less productive by 35 per cent compared to machines from Europe and 20 per cent less than machines from Japan or Korea. For a factory working 360 days, a Chinese machine may last for 2-3 years while European machines last for 15-20 years. Lured by the price, few garment manufacturers have opted for Chinese machines. They would realise after burning their fingers”, says Mr G Sakthivel, executive director, Eastman Exports.

Concurs Mr Pradeep Sinha, CEO, Inditech, which represents a number of Japanese machinery manufacturers in India, “Chinese machines may be cheaper, but the discerning Indian buyer is interested only in the best technology, and has begun realising that good technology gives better results, which is also why a number of medium and small sized mills are going in for new machines rather than second-hand machines.”

India is better positioned in the manufacture of spinning systems. “The world’s finest spinning systems are manufactured in India. The level of technology and finishing of the Chinese machines is very poor compared to that of Indian machines. And when it comes to price, there isn’t too much difference between Indian and Chinese spinning systems,” according to Mr S Ramasubbu, chief technical officer at Super Spinning.

With the Chinese machinery manufacturers putting more thrust on the Indian market, the textile machinery manufacturers in India have to gear up. “So far, India was a protected market, that is going to change when the market opens up. We are already witnessing the trend as many textile machinery manufacturers from China have enrolled to participate in the India ITME show. It would be difficult and may take time for them to crack the Indian market. By the time, Indian manufacturers should gear up to international standards”, says Mr G T Dembla, chairman, India ITME Society.