India can be great for manufacturing

INTERVIEW: Nadir Godrej, chairman and managing director, Godrej Industries

- NACHIKET KELKAR AND DNYANESH JATHAR

Q/ Covid caused a lot of disruptions, followed by geopolitical tensions, rising cost pressures and slowing economies. How have your businesses navigated these challenges?

A/ During the pandemic, we responded quickly. Factories started producing within two or three weeks, largely because workers lived in factories. We vaccinated all our employees, some family members and other associates of the company, and there was a very good response to that. So, during the pandemic, work was not affected much.

The Ukraine-Russia war caused a commodity boom, but that is also over now. The high prices of the commodities affected us when some of them were raw materials. When these were commodities we were producing ourselves, like palm oil, it was actually a benefit. But now that is also over.

The war was bad for Ukraine. But for India, there were opportunities like getting cheap oil and selling refined petroleum products at a big margin. So India has not been very badly affected. It is one of the fastest growing economies. Another economy that we operate in, Indonesia, is also doing well. The developed world and a lot of the developing world are in bad shape. But there are these intermediate economies, which are not so bad. China was badly affected by the pandemic. Now it is slowly recovering, but the Chinese recovery is not really very good, even today. So it is actually a big opportunity for India and Indian businesses.

Q/ What is your assessment of overall economic trends? And what is the growth outlook for Godrej companies?