Doing Business in India For Dummies®

Exploring the Manufacturing Preliminaries

Any business entry into India requires legwork and research, and manufacturing is no exception. You need to make sure all your ducks are in a row before you can press “start” on your state-of-the-art robotic assembly line, or even before you dig your first shovel full of dirt at the ground-breaking for your new factory.

In this section, I help you understand the tasks you need to complete and the decisions you need to make before establishing your manufacturing presence on the ground in India.

Choosing an entry method

You have a number of entry options available to you in India, and you should consider all of them when deciding how to best establish your manufacturing presence. You can read about the various entry methods in Chapter 5, but check out this quick recap:

✓	You can set up your company as a solely-owned or as a branch/liaison/project office.
✓	You can choose to incorporate manufacturing subsidiaries in India as companies with limited liability, which is the option many foreign companies choose.
✓	You can enter into a partnership, such as a joint venture.

Manufacturing investors can set up shop in India as a foreign company or part of an Indian one. Indian companies can be either joint ventures or wholly owned subsidiaries, and as a foreigner you’re allowed to hold 100 percent equity, though caps do exist in some sectors. (See Chapter 5 for detailed information on these caps.)

As far as joint ventures or partnerships go, you can either ...