Mr K Ramalingam, manager, sales, Poornima Associates

'It is possible in certain sectors'

In the textile machinery market, India has a strong presence in certain sectors and in certain sectors there is no presence. Joint ventures cannot happen in sectors where we are already strong. In the case of spinning, we have very strong players and here we cannot expect a joint venture to happen. As our presence in weaving is not so impressive with very good manufacturers, a joint venture cannot happen here. In processing, there are a few good manufacturers and here there is a possibility. In garment technology and other finishing equipments, India has no manufacturers and joint ventures cannot happen here too. For a country like India, we need JVs in order to access technology. Foreign textile machinery manufacturers, who are interested in joint ventures will look for local manufacturers who have the manufacturing discipline, to offer quality products and marketing network. If either of this fails, a joint venture cannot work. For instance, if large textile machinery manufacturers like LMW, with financial and manufacturing prowess, foray into manufacture of any other textile machinery, joint ventures can happen. Given the large textile base and the potential to export to other Asian countries from here, foreign textile manufacturers would be interested in JVs.

Mr C V Radhakrishnan, executive director, India ITME Society

'Joint ventures may not be possible now'

I do not perceive much scope for joint ventures in the Indian textile engineering industry, even as this industry will be greatly benefitted by such collaborations. One of the reasons why the foreign players do not want to join hands with Indian manufacturers is because they do not get the desired level of management control. Wherever this has been addressed, the JVs have worked fine. Besides, the foreign players are not eager to set up manufacturing base in India when they can very well export to India from their existing base. One more reason for JVs not happening is that the foreign partner wants more capital investment from his Indian counterpart, and this is also not happening.

It is true that a number of European textile machinery makers have set up base in China, but even there, they face problems. Once such a factory is set up, many Chinese companies come up parallelly, offering almost similar technologies, at very low prices, and the JVs are not very successful. There have been instances of foreign manufacturers moving out of such joint ventures in China due to this reason.