| International Events
A CEOS MISSION TO AUSTRALIA: 10 - 16 JULY,
1999
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Mission programme was extremely well designed
by AUSTRADE in cooperation with FAPM and included
a good blend of plant visits, meetings with Officials,
Interactions with Training and R&D Institutes
and visits to OEMs. The overall organisational
support from AUSTRADE was excellent, with an AUSTRADE
representative present with the Delegation throughout
the Mission.
GM, Ford, Toyota and Mitsubishi
were the 4 vehicle manufacturers accounting for
the Australian automotive industry's total vehicle
production. |
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Statistics show that the total demand for vehicles was
around 800,000 and this market was expected to grow
to 1 million by the year 2005. The main demand was for
Cars, Vans, Trucks and Buses. Domestic production of
vehicles in Australia was 300,000 units per annum while
the balance 500,000 was imported from Japan and Korea.
With GM and Toyota exporting to the USA, Latin America
and Asia, exports from Australia accounted for 55,000
vehicles annually.
The Australian Automotive industry
had been heavily protected, till about 15 years ago,
when the process of liberalisation started. The Import
Duty rates were lowered from an average level of 57.5%
to the existing rate of 17.5%, for vehicles. This was
expected to reduce to 15% for passenger cars by 2005.
The opening up of international competition had helped
the local industry to improve and become globally competitive.
The component industry had also gone through a major
re-structuring process over the last 15 years or so.
However, it seemed that the entire industry had accepted
the liberalisation with extreme confidence. Today, the
Australian industry was near World Class with competitive
costs, Australian wage rates being much lower than the
EU and Japan.
There was potential for co-operation
between India and Australia in a number of areas, in
the automotive sector :
(a) A very interesting concept was
the Institute for Research and Development including
Designing in the automotive industry, jointly set up
by a cluster of component manufacturers. This Institute
carried out Rapid Prototyping, Design simulation and
Process Simulation, using computer simulation techniques.
Developing this in India could be an interesting concept
for consideration.
(b) There was also potential for co-operation
in the filed of Automotive Training. The Automotive
Training Australia was an Institute which had been specially
set up by the Australian Government and Industry, to
impart skills to the personnel employed in the automotive
industry, in order to become globally competitive. There
was a proposal that ATA and ACMA should jointly carry
out a Demonstration Project in India to assess its benefits
and long term utility for Indian companies.
(c) Another area for cooperation was
in the sector of Tooling and Dies. Australia had excellent
capabilities in manufacturing Tooling and could be a
good source of this item for the Indian auto-component
manufacturers.
ACMA, once again, wishes to acknowledge
with thanks the tremendous support and co-operation
extended by AUSTRADE to the Association from its offices
in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and for the excellent arrangements
and programme organised by the Australian Trade Commission
Office, New Delhi.
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