Construction Equipment Industry

Rising infrastructure spend to accelerate market growth.

- S. Anantharaman

“Infrastructure is the key to economic growth,” said the Union Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley, in his inaugural address during late September at the BRICS India 2016 Seminar on “Best Practices in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Long-term Infrastructure Financing”. True to his statement, a reflection of the Government policies and plans, the implementation program has been actively directed towards this goal with necessary funding to various projects. In the budget presented on February 1, 2017 substantive impetus has been provided for creating/upgrading infrastructure and an investment of about Rs. 4 lakh crores (~USD 60 billion) earmarked for the next fiscal year. Like all the fast developing economies and industrialised countries, India has put on top of its agenda the plans for having a vibrant infrastructure to stimulate the GDP growth rate and acting upon it by increasing the spending thro’ various measures. Also with sustainability, environmental protection regulations and norms coming to the fore, the infrastructure space is becoming a beehive of activity getting the utmost attention and rightly so. This augurs well for construction domain workhorses, viz., construction equipment and the segment is all set to play a key role in the emerging scenario. Having gone thro’ an extended rough patch since 2011 and with things now looking up, the sector players are downright enthusiastic, bullish and getting all geared up to meet the business opportunities likely to unfold in the road ahead.

To understand recent developments, growth drivers, challenges and ground realties, we interacted with the key players having rich and diverse experience across the construction equipment space. The focus was on earthmoving equipment segment and the objective was to understand their strategies and plans to address the market needs and demands – read on for their incisive and interesting viewpoints.