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From 2001 onwards, almost all the major Indian companies have looked towards manufacturing bases, forays or tie-ups on Chinese soil. Be it the age-old Tatas, Birlas or the new generation Narayan Murthys, Azim Premjis. It doesn't end there. Even NRIs are eyeing the chow - the 'Steel Tycoon' Mr. Lakshmi Narayan Mittal is setting up a $100 million steel plant in the mineral rich Liaoning province.

For instance, the Tata group - Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel and Tata Engineering already have their footprints, with Tata Steel planning to expand its value-added steel manufacturing capacity at its three newly acquired plants in southern China.

The Great Wall seems popular with manufacturing companies as well. Mr. Subhash Chandra's Essel Propack that manufactures laminated tubes has set up several manufacturing units in Guangzhou and Shanghai, which according to industry estimates, clock an investment of around $40 million.

The Aditya Birla Group too has made a foray. Liaoning Birla Carbon, a pioneering venture in China, is a joint venture between Thai Carbon Black Co. Ltd., Thailand, an Aditya Birla Group Company, and Dashiqiao Ronghua Co. Ltd. With a capacity of approximately 12,000 TPA and currently in large-scale expansion mode, the company manufactures and markets furnace grade carbon black, under brand name Birla Carbon.

For the IT industry, all roads lead to China. Aptech has a joint venture with Beida Jade Bird for IT training in China. The joint venture, Aptech Beida, has a paid-up capital of $5,00,000 where Aptech has invested $2,50,000, which it proposes to increase. The company has 150 training centres in China and claims a market share of 15 per cent. NIIT, on the other hand, has two entities in China - PCEC NIIT Institute of Information Technology, Shanghai, for training, and NIIT China Shanghai Ltd., which is into education as well as software development. So far it has invested under a million dollars in each of these companies.

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* Contributed by -
Syam Krishna V. K. ,
B.Tech. (Prod. Engg.), Kerala University,
MBA 2007, DOMS, IIT Madras.