Carrier to step up investments in India by USD 800 million: CEO David Gitlin
Florida-based Carrier, a global heating, ventilation and air conditioning giant, is looking to ramp up investments in India, chairman and chief executive David Gitlin tells ET's Mohit Bhalla in an interview. Edited excerpts:
What do you make about the general business environment in India?
We've been very positive about the business environment for decades. We established a presence here in 1987.
I feel like we are at an inflection point in India. We've been bullish on India for very many years. We've established a very strong presence, especially on the commercial heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) side, but we feel India will go through a phase of exponential growth and we're determined to be right in the middle of that.
We have a strong manufacturing presence here.
We are going to significantly increase it. We have a strong supply chain, we are going to increase that 4X over the next five years. We have a strong engineering and digital presence, and we are going to significantly expand that.
When we look globally, we are probably as, if not more, bullish on India than any country in the world right now in terms of where to invest.
What type of investment are you looking at to meet your expansion targets here?
We've invested over $1 billion in India over the last decade and we are going to increase that by $800 million over the next 5 years. A lot of it is going to start with manufacturing. In our Gurugram facility, today we do high-end commercial air-conditioning systems and chillers.
