Lift Report

The exhibition was inaugurated by Mr. Mohan Deshmukh, President of MCHI (Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry) and Mr. V.D. Shintre, Chief Engineer – Electrical, PWD, which is the licensing authority for lifts in Maharashtra State. The dignitaries also launched the Indian edition of Elevator World Magazine – Elevator World India - which was presented by Mr. T. Bruce MacKinnon himself.

The exhibition and the seminar held on February 29 were attended by more than 6 000 serious trade visitors including builders, architects, E&E industry representatives, heads of large public sector companies and government bodies, licensing authorities, technicians, consultants, media personnel, students, etc.

The participants found the exhibition to be highly fruitful with quality visitors and potential business opportunities in India. 90 % of the exhibitors have rated the exhibition and the business prospects as “very good” and have shown a keen interest to participate in the next IEE Expo on a much lager scale.

The seminar held in conjunction with the exhibition on February 29, 2008, titled “Towards Safer Vertical Transportation Systems” was well appreciated by the attendees . Speakers from leading companies of the industry presented various papers on safety equipment such as emergency communication systems, emergency rescue operations, preventive maintenance technologies, user perspectives and the prevailing codes and standards.

With the conclusion of this second successful exhibition, IEE Expo has established itself as the only major and focussed trade exhibition on vertical transportion held in India.

The joint booth organised by VFA Interlift e. V. and AFAG Messegesellschaft has been extremely successful once again. The hauliers BTG Messespedition were very flexible in their response and reacted promptly when they were asked to leave the exhibits in the depot for another day because two days prior to the opening the exhibition halls were far from being all set. Something that also proved to be extremely convenient was the shuttle service organised between the hotel and exhibition grounds. In the past few years a participation in the joint booth proved to be extremely advantageous and it provides a simple and less expensive access to a new exhibition.

In the course of the reforms introduced in 1991, India has also increasingly opened its market to the foreign trade. In most sectors foreign direct investments are now being allowed. Trade figures show that India has principally gained from globalisation. According to WTO figures its share in the world trade in 2006 amounted to approx. 1.2 % for goods and 2.7 % for services, India ranking on 10 worldwide for exports and featuring the biggest growth. In 2006 the aggregated world trade share for goods and services amounted to 1.5 % and will outrun the 2 % limit in 2009. With average annual growth rates of 25 % in the last three years the Indian goods exports in the 2006/7 fiscal year reached some 125 billion US-$. Despite these strong growth rates the country is only ranking on 28 worldwide. Against the background of the strongly increased domestic demand for capital and consumer goods India has gradually reduced its custom duties, even though it is still bellingerent in the adoption of relevant WTO commitments. In one of the recent WTO investigations made in India’s trade policy, the let-up in restraints was acclaimed but the non-transparent structure of custom duties often distorted by discretionary political interventions as well as the major discrepancies between bound and applied custom rates were criticised. Now that the full WTO membership has been attained on January 1, 2005, the appropriate commitments relating to the protection of intellectual property (TRIPS) have come into force. By extending the Indian patent legislation to products (in the past only the production processes could be patented), „reverse engineering“ cases can now be brought to court. But the implementation of the WTO commitments has not closed all loopholes yet.

All forecasts assume that India can bank on high growth rates in the years to come. Since production facilities are largely used to full capacity, the companies will not be able to maintain the sometimes enormous profit margins achieved the past. It is therefore a central matter of concern of the government to create favourable conditions for further company investments required to maintain the high growth rates without which the country cannot rid itself of poverty and underdevelopment.

Under the slogan “jobless growth” the current economical policy debates are more and more focussing on the fact that the high growth rates achieved in the past few years have not created the corresponding number of jobs. The planning committee estimates the effective annual growth in employment to amount to 2–3 % only. Although this figure is higher than the annual increase in population, it is not enough to substantially decrease the high degree of unemployment and underemployment in cities and in the countryside. The last available official figure published by the national statistics authority shows that only 8.9 % of the population are unemployed (2004/5), but this total cannot be regarded as being very reliable when you take into account the high share of so-called “informal” employment contracts. It may be assumed that the “number of undisclosed cases” is much higher. Even government authorities assume that in the cities half of the employable population is unemployed.

Some 80 percent of the Indian population have an income of less than 2 US Dollar per day, one third even less than one US Dollar per day. Mainly the growing middle class estimated at 100 to 300 million and the upper class are taking advantage of the economic upswing. This of course also becomes apparent to the observer taking a stroll through a city like Mumbai. To European eyes it is shocking to see the obvious poverty of a large part of the population living under most adverse conditions. For most observers India’s aspiring economic power will sink into oblivion when they become aware of these evident signs of poverty.