Date: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Time: 11.30 - 13.00 GMT+5
Platform: Zoom Meetings & YouTube Livestream
Speaker: Jamshyd Godrej, Chairman and Managing Director of Godrej Boyce
Moderator: Olta Myslimi from American University of Phnom Penh
Godrej and Boyce’s International Expansion
In the 1960s, our family decided that we needed to spread our wings and go beyond India so we established ourselves with furniture manufacturing in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. In the 1980s, that led to our international business expanding to Oman, where we have a factory there, and in Vietnam. Our chemicals and soaps business have investments and factories in Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, and Bangladesh. I think that our export business, even though it’s quite small in comparison, overall it’s not more than 15 percent of our turnover but it’s quite strategic especially in the region around India like Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and so on.
The crucial thing of Our Business Group
We focus on two things: sustainability - sustainable products, products which have a lasting value, and innovation. These two areas are at the core of what we do. We have a program, in which we are constantly looking for our products which meet the criterias of both being a good product and being a good green product. The Evolution of Geopolitics
International Business
India has a huge demand for almost every goods and services but has not been using export essentially as a growth driver in the same way that Southeast Asia has. I think we have been slow in realizing the importance of international business for our country. But, now that we are much more focused on that, I think we have gone into free trade and preferential agreements, worked very closely with ASEAN and Singapore, and essentially tried to make sure that we have a good way for investment to flow into the region. So, that’s part of our recent outlook and outreach in the region.
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