Siemens planning to expand its workforce in India

Siemens AG, which already has an existing workforce of 16,000 in the country, is planning to hire more staff and an investment of 1 billion euros would be made for the purpose.

As per an Economic Times report, this move will make Siemens the first European firm to have invested such a big investment in a ‘Make in India’ initiative.

The company’s CEO Joe Kaeser, who is in New Delhi along with the company’s entire board, has said that the firm might also consider mergers and acquisitions in the software space.

Kaeser’s meeting with PM Modi is scheduled today and is expected to vow support to the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Not just this, he has also suggested to expand its slogan to ‘make it happen in India’ and go beyond manufacturing and include societal development, training, automation etc.

"We will continue to invest in India. We have invested euro 2 billion in the past 10 years, and we will invest euro one billion in the years to come to significantly participate in Make in India and 'Make it Happen in India'," Kaeser told ET.

The company which competes with Alstom has bigger plans and is looking forward to bag a major locomotive order from Indian Railways. Reports, however, suggest that Alstom may have made a more competitive bid, but Kaeser said he was looking far beyond the order.

"First of all we are in the middle of the whole process. We'll see how it goes. So there's nothing more to talk about at this time. We are not dependent on one single order. We have made it always very clear that this is a very attractive country. We've been here for more than 100 years. Our founder himself has laid the first telecommunication cable from Kolkata to London, which was a fascinating innovation at that time," he said.

While the locomotives order has been delayed for years, Siemens found the system much faster in Egypt, where it recently bagged an order worth euro 8 billion. That order involved setting up of a power generator, which is three-and-a-half times the size of one ultra mega power project in India.

Kaeser said the situation was different in Egypt, which needed to quickly provide its citizens with basic energy supply and distribution, unlike India which has already taken several steps in that direction. In India, the order for locomotives has not been decided for a decade.

"The country needs to set its own priorities and the companies need to respect that," he said. The Siemens CEO also said he was bullish on oil & gas, although analysts are worried about the oil & gas services and equipment sector after the dramatic collapse of crude prices.

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