Indian businessmen eye RI opportunity
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The huge potential market in Indonesia has prompted several Indian businessmen to look seriously at business opportunities, by exporting their products as well as opening representative offices here.
"Indonesia is a potential market for our company," said Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) assistant manager, TU Vasagam, on the sidelines of the four-day India engineering expo -- Indiatech 2005 -- at the Jakarta Convention Center on Thursday.
The company, which produces heavy equipment, has planned to open a representative office here to expand.
"So far, we have exported our products to 32 countries in Europe, South America and Africa," he said.
Vasagam said the company had sold heavy equipment to Indonesia back in the 1980s and 1990s. "We are now aiming at expanding the market here."
Meanwhile, Rama Home Need Pvt Ltd, a water purifier producer, also hopes to open an office while studying the possibility of have a manufacturing plant here.
"We have been exporting our products to the UK, the U.S, Germany and South Africa," said managing director KR Balachandran. "Since this product is new to the local market, we are looking forward to opening our own manufacturing plant here."
Another expo participant Sagas Autotec, meanwhile, plans to market conversion kits for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) to Indonesia.
"Our product is suitable for three-wheelers," said company's senior executive Anantha Murthy. "We have been supplying our product to the Bajaj company. Domestically, we sell 2,500 units of conversion kits per month."
The company has exported its products to South American countries, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the past three years.
In several cities in Indonesia, people still use bajaj (three- wheeled motorized taxi) and bemo (three-wheeled motorized vans) as land transportation modes. Both vehicles have been blamed for causing pollution and the Jakarta administration has been phasing out the vehicles to replace them with a cleaner vehicle.
"Since the use of CNG has been slowing down in India, we are eying the Indonesian market due to the people's increasing concern for environmentally friendly technology," Anantha said. (003/004)