Amid ongoing negotiations for the proposed India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA), aerospace major Boeing sees India emerging as one of the key manufacturing and sourcing hubs for the global aviation industry. Salil Gupte, President of Boeing India and South Asia, in an interaction with
TNIE’s Pushpita Dey tells aerospace and defence industrialisation have emerges as the “big priority” under the joint vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, with India already contributing majority of the chunk in sourcing for Boeing and other American aerospace firms. Edited excerpts:
With India US-BTA talks going on, can we expect India to emerge as one of the major manufacturing hubs for Boeing in the future? And what could be the plans for that?
Under the joint statement of the Prime Minister and the President last year, which is the defining document of the US-India relationship's priorities in the second Trump administration, aerospace and defence in terms of the industrialisation of aerospace in India, is already a big priority for these two governments. So taking the lead from the White House, we have already worked to increase the industrialisation of Indian aerospace.
We already have sourcing of more than Rs 12,000 crores from India, of which I believe over two-thirds, probably more than 70% now, is manufacturing sourcing.
So India is already a very huge source of manufacturing supply for our industry, not just at Boeing, but also for our various other US companies, whether it's Raytheon and Collins Aerospace, whether it's Honeywell, or even for some of our peer companies like Lockheed. This is already a big source of supply.
How has the supply chain disruption due to the West Asia crisis impacted Boeing India? Will it be passed on to the customers too?
Certainly there have been some disruptions that we've had to adapt to in terms of logistics as a result of the conflict in West Asia. But that's true for
every industry across the globe.
Largely, we are focused on the impact on our customers, because naturally, with higher energy prices that affect the cost of jet fuels, which is the largest cost of doing business for our airline customers around the world, and here in India, and they've had to adjust some of their capacity in recent days, in recent weeks, to react to this situation.
And the sooner that you get to a stage where energy prices are ultimately restored to their prior levels, then you will have this capacity restored that
enables the connectivity that our airline customers want to provide to their customers, for both the passengers and the cargo customers.
What challenges do you currently face in obtaining certification approvals in India, and what policy changes or regulatory easing do you expect from the government going forward, especially if US BTA gets implemented?
Well, I think with regards to policy, the minister (Piyush Goyal) was very clear that he is focused on safety and quality across all the industries. And that means they want the very best in testing capabilities and the very best in certification capabilities too.
For our industry, that is very important as well because safety and quality are so critical for us. So, any sort of schemes or measures, anything that makes those investments easier, whether it's PLI schemes, if they are directed towards those capabilities that help certification or testing in India, I think will be very helpful to aerospace. We are only one industry where that's going to be helpful.