The All Indian Industrial Gas Manufacturers Association (AIIGMA) held their 28th annual conference in New Delhi on the 27/28th January. Over 250 delegates attended the conference, 20 of which came from as far away as the US, Australia, Europe and the Middle East – gasworld was there to cover the event.
The Conference
Mr Khator “ President of AIIGMA, welcomed delegates to the conference and presented the theme of the 2 day meeting, Gas – Key to the 21st Century Growth. He stated that the industrial gases business had grown rapidly over the 30 years AIIGMA had been formed and especially in the past 5-10 years in which the industry has seen the entry of major international gas companies and the Indian economy reach consistent levels of growth of between 7-8% (GDP).
The size of the Indian industrial gases business in India was estimated by AIIGMA to have reached Rupees 3000 Crore (US$ 670m) and is growing at 2 times GDP. According to Khator, this places India as the 18th largest market for gases worldwide “ however, the growth forecast for India could well boost the market to reach the 5th or 6th largest in 20 years.
However, there were a number of concerns for the industry “ some of which needed to be addressed by Government. These concerns included the need for uninterrupted power supply “ parts of India , especially in the West, suffer from brown outs and in some cases black outs and for an energy intensive business like industrial gases this needs to be addressed. Further more, taxation of the business was non-uniform and was hindering growth. While there was a recognition that import duty had been reduced from 120% in the late 1980s to the 15% level now “ this was affecting those companies needing to import quality equipment. Secondly, the treatment of gases for taxation (VAT) was also different across the States of India and the government needed to look at this.
... to continue reading you must be subscribed
