Hitachi India bets big on rail, energy, payments sectors; lauds faster implementations

Davos, Jan 20 (PTI) Lauding the government for speeding up the implementation process for large projects, Hitachi India Chairman Bharat Kaushal said Japanese investment commitments are being utilised much faster now.

This is also leading to deal sizes getting much bigger now between India and Japan, while deals are no longer limited to the two governments, with a lot of private sector deals happening across equity, debt and partnerships, Kaushal told PTI here during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

Crediting the Indian government, he said implementation is one area that has really transformed in the past decade, whether it is the modernisation and expansion of Indian railways or metro urban mobility solutions.

Similarly, the energy sector has undergone a major transformation and is now increasingly horizontal, touching many, if not all, aspects of the economy, he said.

On focus areas for Hitachi in India, he said energy and rail are definitely big social and political priorities in India, and the economic might of these two cannot be matched easily by any other sector.

"We are seeing about USD 45-50 billion being spent in the rail sector, including urban mobility, and close to USE 40 billion being spent in energy," he noted.

Besides these two being our biggest bets, Kaushal said, our payment business is a unique part of our business because it is on both the cash side with ATMs and the digital side with the State Bank of India.

And both of these businesses, of course, have become flagship of Digital India's story. They have both grown," he said.

On India-Japan ties, he said, one of the things that has been very consistent is the economic engagement of Japan and India.

"You know, earlier our absorption capacity of a lot of Japanese funding that was coming was not getting absorbed at the same speed because there were implementation delays, and the Japanese companies' hallmark is quality and reliability," he said.

"What has transformed with this is that the size of the deal, the earnestness with which you push a deal have both changed.

"So the last time that I think it was in 2022, USD 42 billion were committed. More or less before the end of 2025, most of that money was spent already, and now commitments from the private sector are also coming," he said.

On AI, a key buzzword at Davos, he said artificial intelligence is like the internet that is going to touch almost all spheres, and manufacturing is no different and will help save costs, improve productivity, and enhance capabilities, among other things. PTI BJ DRR