Automotive sector suppliers demand long-term planning certainty for legislative changes

6. May 2021

In India, suppliers in the automotive sector are demanding a short-term pause in the introduction of new laws and regulations. They are also demanding long-term planning certainty in order to prepare appropriate investments. The president of the industry association ACMA, Deepak Jain, indicated that in the event of a recovery of the Indian economy, automotive suppliers will play an important role. He further said that during the transition of India’s emission standards from BS4 to BS6, the auto industry invested around $10.7 billion to implement the guidelines accordingly. It is estimated that between 40 and 50 percent of this was shouldered by suppliers. As a result, his association, ACMA, which represents India’s major automotive suppliers, is calling for a temporary suspension or postponement of further new regulations.

The financial situation is tight at many companies, leaving no scope for new investments. This is due to a general downturn in the auto industry as well as supply disruptions and production outages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to ACMA President Jain, supply chains are currently already overwhelmed even with the lower demand. He suggested a possible solution would be a meeting of other industry associations and the government to come up with a long-term plan. According to his information, companies are also expecting direct support and subsidies from the government during this difficult period. In the last fiscal year, the Indian supplier industry generated a turnover of 49.2 billion US dollars and reported a decrease of 11.7 percent compared to the previous year.

In addition to vehicles as a whole, an increasing number of components in the automotive sector in India must undergo certification before they can be imported or marketed. Recently, some product categories such as rims, tires, automotive glass and electronic components have been added to this mandatory certification. The relevant automotive technical standards, called Automotive Industry Standards or AIS for short, apply to India as a manufacturing location.

AIS stands for Automotive Industry Standards, the technical automotive standards for India, while TAC stands for Type Approval Certificate. This kind of automotive product certifiation is conducted by authorities like the International Center for Automotive Technology (iCAT).
Depending on the product category, there are different certification steps. We will be happy to advise you on certification in India like AIS, BIS, WPC, TEC or PESO and are always available to answer your questions.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for further details and consultation. You can contact us via e-mail, or call us (UK: +44 2071931135, Rest of Europe: +49 69 2713769261, US: +1 773 654-2673). If you have any questions you can also use our chat-window in the bottom right. (Please check your browser settings if you can’t see the window)
You can also check out our free AIS-Brochure, which can be downloaded right here as a PDF file.