HOP Electric Mobility to invest Rs 100 crore to expand EV manufacturing capacity

Source: Economic Times, 05 January 2022

HOP Electric Mobility, a diversified business venture of Rays Power Infra, is looking at investing Rs 100 crore over the next two years to expand manufacturing capacity for electric vehicles.

The company currently has a manufacturing unit at Jaipur in Rajasthan with a production capacity of 50,000 vehicles per annum, which can be expanded to roll out 100,000 units every year. HOP Electric plans to set up a second manufacturing facility, which will take the total capacity to 500,000 units per year by 2023. The company is looking at raising resources to fund its expansion plans.

“We are targeting the commuter segment with our products,” said Ketan Mehta, founder and chief executive officer, HOP Electric Mobility. “Currently, most electric two-wheelers are priced upwards of Rs 1 lakh. We are looking at garnering volumes in the mass market by offering affordable scooters and motorcycles, with longer range and higher speeds.”

HOP Electric offers two electric scooters—HOP LEO and HOP LYF—in the local market. The products deliver a range of 70-120 km and retail between Rs 72,000 and Rs 95,000, depending on the state of sale. A third product, an electric motorcycle OXO, is scheduled for launch next month.

To shore up volumes, the company is looking at launching 10 new products over the next three years.

HOP Electric, which commenced sales earlier this financial year, is registering sales of around 1,000 units every month. Mehta expects monthly volumes to go up to 4,000 units by March/April 2022. The company is looking at selling at least 50,000 units in CY2022.

To increase reach, HOP Electric plans to have in place 100 dealerships by the end of the current financial year. Overall, the plan is to expand footprint across India in the next 2-3 years. The company has around 50 sales outlets spread across nine states, mostly in the southern part of the country.

“The potential for electrification in the two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments is huge. If current policies continue, all two-wheelers sold in the local market are likely to go electric by 2030,” said Mehta.

HOP Electric also plans to put in place a battery swapping and charging network across the country by the end of 2023. Its pilot network with five swapping stations and 50 batteries has already started operation in Jaipur, and the brand is now planning to further expand in other cities and states.

Siemens firming up big India investment plans

Source: Economic Times, 07 October 2021

German conglomerate Siemens AG is finalising its strategic plan for the next five years for India and its investments in the country are likely to be “more ambitious” than before, global chief executive Roland Busch said.

Siemens has invested close to Euro 1 billion in the past five years in India. The investments included its biggest ever acquisition in the country – a Rs 2,100 crore deal for electrical and electronic equipment maker C&S Electric – earlier this year.

Talking to ET, Busch said Siemens India, led by CEO Sunil Mathur, is preparing a detailed strategic plan for the country and will finalise the plans soon. “It will be more ambitious than the one before,” said Busch, who is also its global president.

Siemens has hiked its growth forecast for FY21 ended September to 11-12%, on a sharp recovery after the disruption caused by Covid. It expects growth to be around 5-7% in fiscal 2022.

Siemens reviewed its performance across businesses in different countries in January-February to assess growth rate over next five years. While the US and China seem to lead, India had potential to be a growth driver.

UK-based fintech firm Tide enters India to tap the growing SMB market, to invest Rs 1,000 crore over the next five years

Source: Financial Express, 29 June 2021

Credit and Finance for MSMEs: India is Tide’s first international market where it wants to tap into the SMB market by offering them financial and administrative services.

India is Tide’s first international market where it wants to tap into the untapped and underserved SMB market by offering them financial and administrative services.

“Tide is committed to serving the 64-million and growing Indian SME sector and will help unleash the true potential of Indian small businesses, said its CEO Oliver Prill on the India expansion.

“In India, we aspire to serve 20 lakhs SMEs in India over the next five years,” said Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO, Tide India.

Tide will have four product lines: payments (such as bank accounts, UPI, cards etc), credit, business services (such as taxation, e-invoicing, payroll) and financial services (such as insurance). These services will be offered to SMBs through Tide’s own product and through several partnerships with internet firms, startups and fin-tech players, said its India CEO Singh.

He added, “Tide’s focus primarily will be on SMBs that want to move from unorganised to organised sector and leverage digitalisation, GST, and several other online tools to enter the formal landscape.”
Tide has earlier announced its collaboration with its first banking partner, RBL Bank to provide the bank account infrastructure where SMEs will have an option to open current and savings accounts through the Tide platform.

The firm also plans to create over 1,000 jobs in its Hyderbad and Gurgaon office. These jobs will be across a wide variety of roles, including product development, software development, marketing, risk & compliance and member support. Tide is already 200-employees strong with most of them based out of its Hyderabad technology centre.

Founded in 2015 and launched in 2017, London-based Tide has over 350,000 SME members in the UK.

India-Japan summit: Focus on Rs 13,000 cr investment in Northeast

Source: The Economic Times, Dec 04, 2019

New Delhi: The India-Japan summit in Guwahati on December 15-16, the first annual summit to be held in the Northeast, is expected to give a major push to the India-Japan Act East Forum as Japan plans to invest around Rs 13,000 cr in projects in the eight states of the region.

Japan has either invested or is planning to invest in a host of projects in Northeast India that include water supply project in Guwahati, road network in Assam-Meghalaya, forest management and agriculture projects in other states of the region, which serves as a gateway to Southeast Asia, said people aware of the matter. New proposals for the region may be announced by Japan at the annual summit, they said.

Japan’s involvement in Northeast India and its plans to expand its footprint in the region figured high at the ministerial dialogue held among the defence ministers and foreign ministers of the two countries on November 30. Japan prioritises connectivity-building projects in all of India, including the Northeast, said Atsushi Kaifu, deputy press secretary in Japan’s foreign affairs ministry. “Connectivity inside India, including the north-eastern part, is important for us,” Kaifu told media after the socalled 2+2 dialogue.

Oil-rich Kuwait plans to double investments in India; eyes joint projects in third nation

Source: The Economic Times, Feb 06, 2019

Oil-rich Kuwait is planning to double its investments in India from the current five billion dollars taking advantage of the country’s growth story and also exploring third country joint projects with Delhi.

The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has currently invested five billion USD and plans to double this, senior sources told ET. Kuwait is also planning to enter into third country joint projects on the lines of joint Kuwait-Japan investments in third countries, sources indicated.
India and UAE have entered into third country project in Ethiopia. Delhi has similar plans with Saudi Arabia.

Historically, Indo-Kuwaiti relations have always had an important trade dimension. India has consistently been among the top ten trading partners of Kuwait. During 2017-18, Kuwait was the ninth largest oil supplier to India and it meets about 4.63% of India’s energy needs. “India is looking for a substantial Kuwaiti investments in oil & gas sector. Large business houses of Kuwaiti also have investible surpluses,” according to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) brief on India-Kuwait ties.

Total non-oil bilateral trade between India and Kuwait increased by about 11%, from $ 2,150.63 million in 2015-16 to $ 2,405.40 million in 2017-18. India’s non-oil exports to Kuwait are showing a positive trend for the past few years. Non-oil export from India to Kuwait increased by about 19.60%, from $ 1,240.54 million in 2015-16 to $ 1,361.06 million in 2017-18, according to MEA.

Total bilateral trade with Kuwait during 2015-16 was $ 6.2 billion. India’s exports to Kuwait grew by 4% ($ 1.24 billion) in 2015-16 vis-à-vis 2014-15. India’s exports to Kuwait included food items, cereals, textiles, garments, electrical and engineering equipment, machinery and mechanical appliances, cars, trucks, buses, tyres, chemicals, jewellery, handicrafts, metal products, iron and steel, etc, the MEA brief added.

UP to launch industrial, infra projects worth Rs 500 billion next month

Source: Business Standard, Nov 29, 2018

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh government will launch industrial and infrastructure projects totalling Rs 500 billion across different sectors next month.

These projects are part of the Rs 4.68 trillion worth of memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with public and private sector companies during the ‘UP Investors Summit’ here on 21-22 February, 2018.

On July 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid foundation of projects worth Rs 600 billion. Inaugurating the Summit, Modi had also exhorted UP and Maharashtra to compete for emerging as the country’s first trillion dollar economies.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who has been busy in campaigning in poll bound states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh over the past few week, on Tuesday night reviewed the progress of the projects lined up for the second ground breaking ceremony slated for the second week of December in Lucknow.

Germany’s Blaupunkt to invest $300 million in TV business in India in next 5 years

Source: LiveMint.com, Sept 12, 2018

New Delhi: German consumer electronics maker Blaupunkt will invest around $300 million (₹2,158 crore) in television business in India in next 3 to 5 years along with its India partner, said a top company official.

The investment would be made by Blaupunkt and Trigur Electronics jointly on marketing/branding and manufacturing at Trigur’s plant in Sonepat, Haryana.Blaupunkt, which would sell its products in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh besides India, aims to have a business of ₹500 crore in next 12 months.

Virgin Hyperloop One may invest $450 million for demo track in India

Source: Financial Express, Jun 20, 2018

Pune: Futuristic transport solutions company Virgin Hyperloop One may invest around $450 million in India to turn its hyperloop vision into reality. Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) CEO Kiran Gitte said the Richard Branson-backed company was ready to invest the said amount for a demonstration track, provided the state government gave them the ‘right of way’ and the land required for the stations.

The demo track is slated to come up near the IT hub of Pune in Hinjewadi. The starting and ending points are yet to be finalised, Gitte said. Virgin Hyperloop and the Maharashtra government — through PMRDA — had signed a memorandum of understanding in February this year to build the first hyperloop in India.The hyperloop route will link central Pune, Navi Mumbai International Airport and Mumbai in 25 minutes. It is expected to be operational by 2024. It is also expected to eventually support 150 million passenger trips annually, saving more than 90 million hours of travel time and also reduce emission as the hyperloop transportation is 100% electric.

 

Indian investments in South Africa touch $4 billion

Source: The Hindu Business Line, May 06, 2018

New Delhi: Around 140 Indian companies have invested close to $4 billion in South Africa, creating direct employment for 18,000 people, according to a report.

Sectors where Indian companies have made significant investments include healthcare and pharmaceuticals, IT, automobile industry and finance. Leading Indian companies that have invested in South Africa are Wipro, Coal India, Cipla, HCL Technologies, Tata Motors, Zomato and Mahindra and Mahindra.

Hiranandani family to invest Rs3,500 crore in oil and gas business

Source: LiveMint.com, Mar 26, 2018

Mumbai: Niranjan Hiranandani’s family is investing around Rs3,500 crore to build liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals in Maharashtra and West Bengal, in a diversification for the Mumbai developer who built the iconic 250-acre Hiranandani Gardens township in suburban Powai.

Led by Darshan Hiranandani, Niranjan’s son, H-Energy (formerly known as Hiranandani Energy) expects to start commercial operation of its first LNG terminal at Jaigarh in Maharashtra by October. The Hiranandanis are spending around Rs 1,700 crore in setting up the terminal and laying down a 60 km pipeline from Jaigarh to Dabhol that is expected to be ready by May 2018.