It's been a fascinating World Economic Forum annual meeting over here in Davos, Switzerland, for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, the topics which have been identified this year. Artificial intelligence. That's been a huge focus. Sustainability. But the backdrop of all of this is the crisis that we face in so many parts of the world. The war in West Asia, the expansion of that war in the Red Sea area, the continuing crisis in the Ukraine. Amidst all of this, there's the India growth story. India, Quite clearly an outlier to global growth. Which is what? About 2.9% India growing at more than 7%. Joining us now. A wonderful guest, sir Martin. So thank you very much, sir. That was a Hollywood introduction, was it? What for you, uh was the highlight of Davos this time. Was it the themes picked up? Was it the India story? Perhaps, Uh, well, obviously the the story was you know, we had What was it? Three States Who had four? Was it? Four and lot of ministries and lots of ministries. Um II. I think the coordinations is important when you have that amount of effort. So that was a highlight, But I think, look, I think my my sort of takeaway, as they say, was that people are a little bit more optimistic than I anticipated. I mean, that's English understatement. They were one session yesterday where, you know, there were journalists in it, and the journalists tried to bring everybody back to what they thought was reality. The comment was you must be smoking something. Um, because the people which they were government witnesses, finance ministers, there were the private sector, um, including representation from India and the general mood. You know, when asked, do you think 2024 would be better than 2023? Uh, almost a majority of the people in the room put their hands up, which Yes, yes, yes. Which is very surprising because coming here, you know, there's the the doom and gloom surrounding the three. I mean, you touched on two of them is obviously US China relationships or lack of them by from which India benefits. Actually, uh, secondly, there's the Russia Ukraine situation, and thirdly, thirdly Iran. And who thought that we would have Iran and Pakistan trading trading missiles with with one another whilst we've been sitting in Davos? Yes, absolutely, Um, and and berating one another in DAS. So So I think the the That's the the biggest thing. Um, you mentioned a I. There's a lot of chat around it. There's a lot of focus on it. We can get into the detail of how it affects our industry. The big thing for 2024 is the development of use cases of case studies of how a I is working and will work. That's gonna be absolutely critical because the chip produces, principally NVIDIA are adding to capacity. They're selling chips like hot dinners, and they're selling processes like hot dinners. And the question is, you know, does demand peak? So in order to continue to stimulate demand, there has to be concrete identification of opportunities. And that's going to be the task for 2024 for example, in our case, we get we get projects at the moment, you know, half a million dollars here, a million dollars there. What we're looking for is the big technological transformation projects. The the other thing I think about Davos is it underlines the two things that we see going on one is geographical fragmentation, Uh, the days of Ted Levitt and the Howard Business Review in 1983 of Globalisation, uh, and consumers consuming everything the same way that still holds, but in a very much more fragmented way because of the three geopolitical risk quite apart from climate change, North Korea and the other things that we have to deal with so that uncertainty. So one thing is focus on the growth areas. That's where the India story becomes so potent and powerful, so North and South America that block is going to become more and more important. I think it's fanciful to believe that America will become a traditional labour manufacturing economy again, with labour rates rising like the UAW agreement by what 25% over four years, it's unrealistic. You might build chip factories in Columbus, Ohio, between Brookfield and Intel. But But you know, if you want to deal with your supply chain, Apple and Tesla are go to Mexico. So Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay. We'll see how Malay does in Argentina that block very important Middle East huge vision. You see it here on the promenade in Davos, and not just Saudi UAE Qatar. Huge vision. And these are visions that are not the usual nation brand. It's not just about the Olympics or the World Cup or Formula One or a combination of all three. It's about changing the way that that countries around the world globally think about Saudi. Think about the UAE. Think about Qatar culturally, a final question and a focused question on India. Has it been a mini India on the Promenade this year? And I think this is why the interest in India? I mean, I said, a great deal of interest in What if you're looking, would you like to talk a little bit more about what people are saying? How you see the story? Modi has done a fantastic job. Uh, he's He's not just a great prime minister, but he's He understands brand, and he understands the importance of it. And he is the chief brand officer of of India and some some presidents and prime ministers. Don't think that communication is that important. The button. Wonderful speaking. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One of the most exciting sectors in the Indian economy and an area that India is showing a great deal of technological prowess. Besides, anything else is the auto sector. We are joined by a very special guest Doctor Shah with us Mahindra Mahindra very much a leader in India in so many spaces. The big buzz in Davos for the last several years in fact, has been EVs electric vehicles. That's an area you've invested a great deal. Um, could you share with us the interest that you see in Mahindra Mahindra in the space when you come here and speak to people over here? So EV clearly is for the future and we've got an outstanding platform. So the interest in Mahindra has been not just at Davos. But over the last couple of years, we've had a number of investors actually approach us wanting to invest in our platform. Uh, it has been benchmarked against some of the best in the world and stands out far ahead. So we are waiting for our S to launch. I've driven three of the five B electric SUVs that we're going to launch and they are wonderful and they should be launched later this year. We promised December 24th we are on track for that, maybe slightly ahead. So stay tuned for that. No, absolutely. We will. You, of course, do have excellent diesel engines as well, which you have refined petrol engines. When do you make a larger or when do you see India, the Indian market make a stronger transition to EVs in terms of percentage of sales? It starts with products. So as we come up with our SUV's, we are confident that there will be a much stronger push towards. The second step will be infrastructure to start with. People who can charge at home will buy EVs because we will not have an infrastructure that can support it. And as we get more cars on the road, the infrastructure will start growing as well. So it is a journey. But it is a journey that I think will happen rapidly. We expect about 30% of our production to be EVs in 27 about three years from now, and we expect about 50% by 30 by 30. We should be making a million EVs, many for markets outside India as well. One of the concerns has been on range that's associated with batteries, which are available particularly in our in our hot, humid conditions range becomes a bit of a concern. Are you satisfied with the pace at which battery technology is developing? From a rain standpoint, there are no issues anymore. So the EVs that we have will have sufficient range. We are putting in some of the latest technology and batteries as well, and that helps both. From a rain standpoint and a safety standpoint. What about costs To make EVs more easily available to the common person cost needs to be somewhat at par with ice. It cannot be significantly higher, and that's what we are working towards. So it's about the entire package because someone buying a car is going to look at the design, how it rides, the features in the car, the cost, all of those factors. So that's something we are very conscious of and based on where we are. And frugal engineering has been one of US trends, along with very high quality, we should be able to deliver something to the consumer that they actually really like. Safety is also obviously a concern across your platforms. Could you tell us about how certain aspects of EVs which require additional safety steps, is something that you focused on very closely as well. So safety is number one for us. Safety comes first. Everything else is there, and for us, the latest battery technology was important. It is which is lithium ferrous phosphate, and the way it is packaged the way it is protected will ensure safety at a very, very high level. And that's something that we actually started with saying Let's ensure that there is no issue from a safety standpoint and our teams have done a very good job in ensuring that we are finally seeing safety standards being implemented in India Quite strongly. You've had very good reviews and ratings over there. Could you share with our viewers a little bit about your thoughts on the importance of the safety standards and how Mahindra is doing so Safety standards again, I think, is critical because even without standards, OEM should have a very, very high standard for safety because consumers have to be protected first and therefore we have always welcomed safety standards. We've stayed at the highest level. We've always strive for a five star safety rating and then have got it for almost all our vehicles now and therefore it's one that is the most important for us. Mahindra stands for safety and yes, we stand for many other things. But that comes after safety. We've both been to Davos now for quite a few years I've had the opportunity of interviewing you in the past as well. What's the big change over here? Is there a change from an India standpoint? There is a much greater focus on India and that's something we've seen over the years. There was something which started last year and this year has been continuing. Everyone is asking about India, Uh, folks who are in India, how do we expand more folks who are not in India? I have met with a very large number of global CEOs over the last four days, and that's something that that stop of mind for them. And I think the government has done a very nice job in ensuring ease of business and being able to attract investors to come into India. And I think that's something is very essential for or make in India the vision that's there and to be able to achieve the fixed part of goals. Wonderful. Thank you, Doctor Shah. Very much for speaking to us. There you have it, Doctor Anish Shah telling us a little bit about Mahindra ev Focus going forward, there should be some exciting new cars. EV is released very, very shortly, but also the India story over here, which remains a huge draw and the reasons for that being the case. It's been another fascinating year the World Economic Forum here in Davos, Switzerland, certainly on the sidelines of the We EFF as well. That's because the India story is certainly resounding over here in terms of international interest. It's also a story which is backed by considerable GDP growth numbers. The RBI governor telling us today that 7% possibly even more in 2024 2025 it's something to look forward to. We've got one of India's finest industrialists, a real inspiration to industry, but also to those who follow Indian industry. Mr. God, wonderful to have you on the programme today. Thank you so much. Let's talk a little bit about the macro story on India This time there is an overall sense of positivity. I sense in speaking to a lot of people over here. What are you hearing? Absolutely Everyone is very impressed by India. There have been geopolitical crises. We have just come out of the pandemic. But all of this, India seems to have weathered very well except for the first year of the pandemic when there was negative growth. Since then, we've had excellent growth. Three years of about 7% growth looks on the cards. And the whole world is impressed by this that India has not been affected by these crises. And that's a great credit to our government and our people. Sir, you are looking to expand in palm oil processing in Aggravate. Could you tell us a little bit about timelines? What the plans are? Yes. Uh, we started the palm oil industry in 1989 because we needed raw material for our olio chemical industry, though actually we sold all of it for edible purposes. There was slow, steady growth and we have about 65,000 hectares already planted, some of it very recently. So not yet yielding. We are producing about 120,000 tonnes of oil already, but the 65,000 hectares we are going to add. We are planning to add 100,000 hectares in the next four years. I should clarify that all of this is grown by smallholder farmers. We only do the milling and we provide the planting material and more and more we have some other centres where we do leaf testing. Soil testing. Give the farmers excellent advice so they save on fertiliser and excessive fertiliser cause pollution. So we avoid that pollution by giving them the exact dose. We also advise them to add sulphur if necessary. Sulphur improves the oil content and the government's new policy is encouraging more and more farmers. And we have just announced loans for our farmers with the collaboration of the State Bank of India. And this means it's a bright future and over the years we hope to keep up this pace. We are well established in Andhra Pradesh. We just met with the telling our chief minister here and we we are expecting to expand faster in telling Ghana, also in Orissa and four northeastern states that are contiguous. So the animal feed business is obviously something which is absolutely huge. It is also closely associated with the success of the of the Monsoon. You know your numbers have been positive. Your your Q two numbers were very good in cattle and aqua feed. Volumes grew 16% and 15% respectively. The reason I ask you this question is because we talk about climate change over here at Davos in a big way. And it's something which directly impacts your industry when it comes to rainfall and the fact that it's been irregular, even if the overall numbers have been OK. Is this something that concerns you? It concerns us to some extent, and there are ups and downs, But there have been ups and downs in the agricultural industry. Always the good thing about high agribusiness. We have several different businesses, and they are not affected the same way each time. So we find that always one business is hit and the other businesses benefit from that hit. So it works out in the end. But climate change is getting more and more serious. I've attended several sessions here in Davos. We are getting close to tipping points. It's really, really sad because the cost of adaptation is greater than the cost of prevention. Any logical person would go for prevention, not adaptation. Unfortunately for prevention, we need a level playing field. If we had some uniform carbon price all over the world with a uniform cap and trade, or even a uniform carbon tax collected by individual states, we would solve this problem in a jiffy, and I'm urging the world to do something. Otherwise we'll have to depend on new technology, and that's the other thing we need to pursue. But we'll have to do many, many things simultaneously to solve this problem. But if we cross tipping points, it's going to be a disaster. So just one or two more questions. The God group, obviously hugely diversified, different parts of the family and others deal with different parts of the business. I'm fascinated by the sector and Goldridge Aerospace. Is this something that the group thinks about very, very closely? Because it is something that's really growing in India. Yeah, definitely. The group has been thinking about that, and defence and aerospace has been an important part of it, and we have been working with Israel for many, many years, of which is the latest with the rocket engine has been used in many projects. It's not just for Chandra, but it has a long history and we have always been ready to serve the nation. And it was Israel who approached us. It's not something we started on our own. Absolutely. It's been wonderful speaking to you, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you for being with us. There you have it, Mr Goldridge. A huge inspiration for so many of us. That's how I started this interview. That's how I'm going to end it. But the sectors that he deals with personally, very closely the agriculture sector, the involvement of the Goldridge group for so many decades, absolutely, absolutely critical for the growth of the Indian economy.
