The Indian Ceramic Tile Industry

摘要

At CERAMITEC 2006, Vijay Aggarw-al, Managing Director at H&R Johnson Ltd. (India), presented a survey on the current situation of the Indian ceramic tile industry. Analysts believe that India has the potential to grow faster than China over the long term of 20...30 years. In this context, it is sometimes referred to as the sleeping elephant. Many aspects of the Indian market remain unexplored for many sectors of industry. India is a highly complex country, with some high barriers to the entry of foreign business (e.g. 18 official languages, a population of one billion people living in 29 states, covering an area of 3,28 million km{sup}2). But India also represents the fourth largest economy in the world, a fact meanwhile clearly recognized e.g. in IT or biotechnology. India is the largest Englishspeaking community in the world and, although often overlooked, it has me second largest pool of scientists and engineers on a global scale. Big global players have already recognized these strengths - General Electric, for instance, already has 17 800 employees and Hewlett-Packard employs 11000 people in India. With more than 250 universities 1 500 research institutes and 10 428 institutions of higher-education, India produces 200000 engineering graduates and another 300 000 technically trained graduates every year.