According to foreign media reports, two government sources said that India may relax restrictions on Chinese investment in non-sensitive industries such as solar module and cell manufacturing. Due to India's lack of professional experience in these fields, it has restricted the development of local manufacturing.
It should be noted here that investment restrictions are mentioned here, which also means that if the news is true, it means that India will resume Chinese photovoltaic investment in India next, and will attract a large number of Chinese photovoltaic companies to invest in India to build factories to produce photovoltaic modules and batteries.
This news is of great significance. You must know that since the conflict on the Himalayan border in 2020, Sino-Indian relations have deteriorated. Subsequently, India has strengthened its review of Chinese companies' investments and rejected almost all Chinese companies' investments.
For this reason, foreign media commented that the news may be the first step to ease Sino-Indian relations.
Moreover, this news is likely to be true. Just this Wednesday, India announced the cancellation of the basic tariffs on Chinese imports of photovoltaic cells and module production equipment and some auxiliary materials. It can be foreseen that India has "loosened its mouth" on Chinese photovoltaics.
There are two main reasons why India is "relaxing" to China's photovoltaic industry. One is that local manufacturing cannot keep up.
For Chinese companies, the threshold for photovoltaic manufacturing may not be high, but for India, there is pressure, not only the quantity can't keep up, but also the quality can't keep up.
In the face of India's ambitious decarbonization goals, India's local new photovoltaic installed capacity in 2023 is only 7.5GW, a year-on-year decrease of 44.1%. Among them, the main reasons for the sharp drop in India's installed capacity are that equipment supply cannot keep up with the growth rate of demand, the supply chain is not sound, and the price of components is high.
As the above-mentioned sources said, India lacks professional experience in these fields, which restricts the development of local manufacturing.
The second is economic pressure. In fact, since the deterioration of Sino-Indian relations, foreign investment in India has been declining year after year. In the past few months, foreign investment in India has fallen to its lowest point in 17 years.
For this reason, senior Indian government officials have been open to re-examining their stance on Chinese investment. This week alone, several senior Indian officials have spoken out in support of easing Sino-Indian economic relations.
On Monday, India's chief economic adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran said that New Delhi could promote foreign direct investment from China to promote India's exports.
On Tuesday, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman supported building better economic relations with China on Tuesday, which was the first time that a senior cabinet minister in the Modi government made such public comments.
If these plans are confirmed, they may attract billions of dollars in investment from China. And for the current photovoltaic industry, it is undoubtedly good news. After all, the current Chinese photovoltaic industry is in a fierce internal competition. If the Indian market is opened, the current oversupply situation will be greatly alleviated.
At present, it seems that India's photovoltaic manufacturing industry is indeed "limited", lacking R&D capabilities in high-threshold links such as photovoltaic equipment, and the level of local manufacturing is also insufficient. Judging from its local photovoltaic installations in the past two years, it can be said that it is "under great pressure" after being separated from China's photovoltaic manufacturing.
Source：SOLARZOOM