Shortly after the visit of Jeff Immelt, CEO, General Electric (GE) ? who also served as an advisor to the US President Barack Obama ? the firm?s wholly-owned India subsidiary, GE Healthcare, has drawn up an ambitious five-year plan to penetrate deep into the healthcare market in the country ? an area outlined in Obama?s address in Parliament last week. The company is looking to offer low-cost and affordable medical equipment in the country, which is expected to cost one-fourth the price of its current products.
GE Healthcare government business director Ashok K Kakkar told FE that currently the company imports up to 90% of its components, which would be brought down to 30-40% in the next five years. ?Our five-year initiative would bring down the cost of equipment significantly… The locally-sourced equipment would cost about 25% of the current equipment,? Kakkar said. This is part of the company?s initiative to dig deep into the country?s $2-billion medical equipment market. ?We estimate that in next five-years the medical equipment market would be around $5 billion,? he added.
Kakkar said the company has three facilities in India and another research & development centre in Bangalore. In future the company may also look at opening up another new manufacturing centre. GE Healthcare is not at present looking at new initiative with state governments but said given an opportunity it was open to the idea. ?Many of these new products would be for the rural markets,? he said.
Globally, the company is one of the largest medical equipment companies. Its offers end-to-end range of products from ultrasound to cardiology-related equipment. In the US, following the recessionary period the demand for medical equipment have been on the rise primarily because of the US Healthcare Bill passed by the Obama administration.
Last week Immelt was a part of Obama?s business delegation to India and sought to address several key issues. In one of his interviews, Immelt said he expected GE to grow 30% in India annually over the next few years.
Earlier Obama had categorically stated healthcare as an important area for India-US partnership. In his address to Parliament Obama had said, ?We?ll continue to support India?s efforts against diseases like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, and as global partners, we?ll work to improve global health by preventing the spread of pandemic flu.?
