Reader reaction: Does the Indian industry face a serious threat from China?

Owner
Rakesh Khurana, Imperial Photo Store
The Chinese are technologically more advanced than the Indian manu-facturers. But they don’t impact the Indian market – as much as they impact the general print industry. Indian manufacturers face competition but not very much. Indian manufacturers must have entry level machines where they do pretty well. Interestingly, high-end Chinese machines are not selling successfully. I personally would never buy a Chinese machine. I think China tends to tempt people with a low budget. Indians need to have a better outlook and vision.  We should play in volumes considering the standards of the world market.

President
Kamal Chopra, NIPA
The growth of printing industry in China for 2006–2011 is estimated at 60% in contrast to a growth of 73% in India. Today, India has consolidated its position as the world’s fourth largest economy in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), and has the third largest GDP in Asia. It is also the second largest among emerging nations. India is one of the few markets in the world which offers high prospects for growth and earning potential in printing and packaging industry. These may be the two major reasons that printing and packaging industry in India is now ranked as the fastest growing in the world; as per the NPES/PRIMIR World Wide Market for print study. 

Manufacturer
Sanjay Gupta, director, K K Printing
After a reasonably good experience at Ipex 2006 and fairly good response from customers in various European countries for our range of web-offset machines at Drupa 2008, Ipex 2010 was another good show for us. There were a number of Chinese exhibitors seen taking part in growing numbers in all the exhibitions. We do not consider their participation as a threat to the Indian companies which manufacture printing and allied machinery, due to our superiority in maintaining quality and durable machines over their Chinese counterpart. The Indian printing industry has lot of potential to grow. We are expecting good growth in 2010–2011.

Manufacturer
Sanjay Kelkar, Printograph
When I visited Chinese exhibitors in China Print and other exhibitions in China and Drupa 2008, we were scared by the competition. But later on, we discovered their negative points – and we improved ourselves. India has good manufacturers of machines and equipment. We should visit China and study how they work and how they market their products. Only blaming China for supplying at low prices is not a solution to the problem. We are prepared to compete with the Chinese. The Indian print industry has its own potential. We should study the international market with the help of websites and tap international printers.