Foundry industry on a higher growth path: Indian Institute of Foundry

COIMBATORE: The Indian foundry industry is on better growth path, registering five per cent to seven per cent growth every year and the momentum would be kept up in the coming years, says, Indian Institute of Foundry-men (IIF) president, Amish Panchal has said. 

Speaking to the press here on Friday ahead of the 11th CEOs' meet on Sunday, he said, “now the Indian foundry sector gradually has gradually risen to second largest producer of castings globally from the fifth place. The sector produced about 11 tonnes of castings in 2017 with revenue generation of US dollars 19 billion. Of this, export of castings is about US dollars 2.7 billion. It is expected to grow three times in the next 10 years.”

Mr Panchal said the automobile sector is the major sourcing segment for foundry and it contributes 40 per cent of the business. Tractors, machine tools, construction and road building sector are some of vital sectors for driving growth of the foundry sector. However, the industry has run into unfavourable factors recently, which would affect development. 

According to him, abnormal increase of raw material costs and pending GST refunds have become serious issues now. He said, “cost of raw materials including chemicals, iron, other essential goods went up by 40 per cent to 100 per cent in last three months. It is likely to increase further in the coming months. Similarly, inverted duty structure led to pending of refunds for majority of industries.” The CEO meet has planned to come out with measures to deal such issues, he said. Mr. A K Anand, director of IIF, Foundry Informatics Centre, was also present.