India still our number one market, says Alstom Grid

STAFFORD, UK: Alstom Grid, the transmission business arm of French engineering major Alstom, sees its India business playing a bigger role in global operations as it taps the manufacturing capacity and the country's manpower might to drive growth.

Besides building its India-listed Alstom T&D India as a manufacturing hub for local and global operations, the company is also using its manpower for global operations with some Indian executives already being assigned key roles at the global level, Gregoire Poux-Guillaume, global president of Alstom Grid and executive vice-president of Alstom, told ET.

"India continues to be our number one market. The industrial and execution base that we have built in India is not for the country alone, but will also serve the worldwide market. As we progress, our Indian team will take bigger role in international operations," Poux-Guillaume said.

India accounts for 15% of Alstom Grid's global sales, making it the biggest contributor among the countries the company operates in. He declined to detail Alstom's investment plans in India, but said it is a higher proportion than its contribution to sales. "Alstom T&D India's CFO, Sunil Mathur, is being made senior vice-president for the group's internal audit and would become a direct reportee of the group's CEO. Even our global industry markets head is an Indian and a lot of our key technology executives in Stafford are from India," he said.

(The correspondent is in the UK at the invitation of the company)