Haier Group to invest Rs 32 bn in greenfield manufacturing plant in Noida

Chinese electronics consumer durables major Haier Group is looking to invest over Rs 32 billion in a greenfield manufacturing plant in Noida.

The new plant would manufacture electronics and home appliances, which the company currently sources for the India market from Qingdao, China. A 7-member team led by Haier Appliances (India) Private Limited president Eric Braganza met UP industries minister Satish Mahana on Tuesday. The new plant is projected to provide employment to 4,300 people.

Braganza said Haier was impressed by the Yogi Adityanath’s new UP electronics manufacturing policy 2017, which offered a gamut of incentives to investors even as he sought the state government support towards the company’s roadmap for UP. He also committed to supporting the government’s various industrial development initiatives, saying Haier’s proposed investment would not only boost UP’s economy but spur industrialisation in the region.

Meanwhile, Mahana assured all help to the company, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Haier Group, one of the world’s leading consumer durables manufacturers. He said Haier was welcome to invest in UP and that the government would provide all incentives under the policy. He said UP was the country’s biggest market and the state government had rolled out the red carpet for industry to set up their units for speedier industrial development and job creation. Manaha claimed that impressed by the government’s pro-industry policies, the companies were proactively coming to UP.

Recently, Chinese smartphone maker Vivo had also sought 150 acres land in Greater Noida flanking Yamuna Expressway for its new proposed integrated mobile phone plant. Vivo, which figures among the top selling smartphone brands in India, currently operates a manufacturing unit in the Yamuna Expressway Authority under lease rent.

A five-member Vivo team had last week met Mahana, who later asked UP infrastructure and industrial development commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey to identify suitable land for Vivo. According to sources, the total investment in the new Vivo plant would be to the tune of Rs 20 billion.

Over the past few years, the Noida-Greater Noida region has emerged as India’s hottest smartphone manufacturing/assembly hub with big names such as Samsung, Karbonn, Lava, Vivo, Intex etc setting up their captive units, while several other companies are in the process of following suit.

At the UP Investors Summit 2018 on 21-22 February, the state government had received total investment proposals of about Rs 55 billion in the electronics space.

In June 2017, Korean electronics giant Samsung had announced to invest almost Rs 50 billion to double its mobile phone manufacturing capacity in UP by 2020 in the backdrop of the company facing tough competition from Chinese brands. In fact, Samsung has drawn the roadmap at making India its manufacturing and export hub to cater the European, West Asian and African smartphone markets.