Siemens mulls 35 million euro for India, China ops

GERMANY: Siemens group plans to invest e35 million by 2013 in India and China to strengthen local operations of its wholly-owned metal and mining technology solutions firm Siemens VAI.

The investment will fund expansion of local production, engineering and project handling capabilities in the two key emerging markets. As a part of the expansion it also plans to add 300 engineers and projects managers besides 200 sales personnel in the two countries over the next 2-3 years.

“We are putting the business responsibility where it originates and where it can and should grow,” said Werner Auer, CEO of Siemens VAI. Asia led by China, accounts for more than half of total annual steel production globally. Siemens VAI derived as much as 54% of its global €2.4 billion order intake for the fiscal year ended September’09 from Asia and expects annual growth of over 10% from the region.

In India Siemens VAI will concentrate on raw steel production technologies, whereas China will be responsible for new developments in the field of rolling.

Both countries will also be responsible for the world-wide marketing of their products, Mr Auer said. “This differentiates our strategy significantly from other market players,” he said.

In India Siemens VAI has one plant and employs around 800 people most of them engineers across its operations in Kolkata and Mumbai. The company did not say how many of the 500 new employees will be added in India and China separately.

Headquartered in Austria, Siemens VAI is one of the top three global players providing technologies and services for the mining, iron and steelmaking industries besides flat rolling sector of the aluminium industry. It is part of the industry division of German engineering giant Siemens.