How would you describe the market scenario with regards to buyers of the machine tools industry? Do you see the situation changing in the near future?
As of today, indigenous and globally market situations are slow in almost all the commodities and we machine tools builders are also passing through a recession period. Machine tools products are basically capital goods items and they get the first impact of recession.
Mostly, during such circumstances work of new project as well as modernising of existing units are kept on hold. Machine tools are the basic need of all manufacturing activities and hence the future of machine tools industry is bright, and we are surely expecting improvement in the scenario in the near future.
What is the industry dealing doing to deal with the situation?
Under the prevailing situation, pressures from production side are comparatively low and this provides better opportunities for development of new products and upgrading existing products.
The collective turnover of Rajkot machine tools industry was estimated around Rs1,400 crore a few years back. How will the present market scenario impact the industry's turnover for the current financial year?
The current situation of recession will definitely have an adverse impact on the collective turnover of Rajkot Machine tools industries. There may be a chance to have a stand still situation instead of growth.
The Bangalore cluster is the market leader when it comes to CNC Machine Tools. Does the Rajkot cluster view this as a competition and is it doing anything to improve its position?
Geographically, Bangalore has got advantages of CMTI. Moreover, a number of pioneer units have existed in Bangalore since long back because of which the necessary ancillary industries and infrastructure have also been quite well developed in Bangalore.
Of course, now Rajkot is also on the same path and many units have forayed into manufacturing of CNC machines. Also, the hard working nature and sincerity of Rajkot SMEs will be advantageous. So, we are very much sure that the future of Rajkot Machine Tools industries is bright.
We do not consider Bangalore industries as a competition. Our focus is towards the potential for development in Rajkot. Production of conventional machines is comparatively difficult due to more number of components.
Of course, Rajkot already has established infrastructure and has also achieved good name and fame in the field of conventional machines. Similarly in the field of CNC machine manufacturing, we will do our level best. We see lots of potential in our region for the entry level new CNC machine manufacturing units.
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