Given this reality, short term and long term challenges are foreseen through the lenses of new and ongoing projects. Procurement community members are thinking if this can be achieved by buying, leasing, replacing, holding, technology transfer or renting.

How do you assess the current market in terms of product sales and what kind of growth you expect for the industry?
The market was showing signs of slowdown from November 2018 onwards. Many of us were blinded by associating the slowdown only to the election process. We firmly believe the slowdown is part of the global phenomenon. In the past too, we have observed that the cyclic nature of our industry. The impact of the slowdown is felt more after April 2019 and we are expecting things to become better after December 2019 quarter. But in overall basis, we expect the market to be down in 2019 at least by 15 per cent compared to the business as we all did in 2018.

We expect things to improve in 2020 and beyond. India will be the first market to recover compared to other major economy in the globe. So we expect 2020 to do better than 2019.

What are the challenges you see are faced by the industry in dealing with upcoming demand and supply?
The slowdown has created a stock pileup in the construction machinery manufacturer’s end. For the real production activity to pick up, we have to wait till all these stocks clear up. However, for that to happen and the market to revive, we have to see actual sale of machines to pick up in good volumes which we are hoping will happen in the upcoming months from October – December. The current issue is majorly a sentiment issue. Even though a combination of factors such as increase in NPAs and liabilities along with shrinking funds of NBFC’s have adversely impacted sales in automotive and construction equipment sector. Contactors payments, delay in allotment of new projects has also contributed to slowdown which we are hoping will get sorted one by one.

What is your expectation from the industry bodies and policy makers to capitalise the present market?
We want the policy makers to speed up the process of demand creation, fund availability for new projects, allotment of contractor payments, faster land acquisitions to ensure demand creation. Industry bodies should be working very closely with policy makers to deliberate the actual situation of the industry and ensure the response to the industry requirements are made as soon as possible.

What is your company’s outlook for 2020 – 2022?
We expect the market to grow in the range of 10 –15 per cent in 2020 – 2022. But the Government is working for the 5 trillion USD economy, this growth percentage can be doubled as the contribution of the construction industry on GDP is very significant.

V G Sakthikumar, Managing Director, Schwing Stetter India Pvt Ltd