India can replace China for US manufacturers, says Georgia chamber leader ahead of Atlanta trade fair
Atlanta, Nov 2 (IANS) India is the only country in the region that can match China in size and capability as US manufacturers look for alternatives, a leader of the Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce has said ahead of a trade fair for Indian manufacturers in Atlanta later this month.
"If you look at the region, South Asia region, there is no other country that can compete with the Chinese in terms of size and capability than India," S.K. Raj, a board member and past president of the chamber, told IANS in an interview.
Raj said Washington was encouraging manufacturers that outsource to China to move away, because China was becoming "strategically a problem" for the US. He said India's advantages included English as the language of business, a young workforce and about 1.5 million engineers produced every year.
"So for all these reasons, all the manufacturers in the US, because of all the tariffs and other things, they're looking at India as a potential alternative," he said.
The chamber is hosting the Atlanta India Trade Fair 2026 from November 18 to 20 at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, next to the city's airport. Raj, who is the event director, said it was the first time the chamber was hosting a trade fair "purely focused on manufacturers from India". The organisers' website says the fair expects more than 35 manufacturers and over 600 buyers.
Raj said the event grew out of earlier exchanges in which the chamber hosted a delegation of about 50 senior executives from more than 40 Indian companies, and later sent a delegation of 25 to India.
He said the chamber was also urging Indian manufacturers to set up factories in the US, since their exports still faced tariffs. "If you set up a shop here in the US and then you make it in the USA, you have tremendous advantage because a local market will be very, very receptive," he said.
However, Raj cited an Indian sweeper maker which he said needed about 150 workers in India for the output of about 35 in the US.
He also said Georgia offered an incentive of $5,000 to $7,500 per new employee for five years.
"So if people think the cost of manufacturing in the US is prohibitively high, they cannot do it, they're really, really wrong," Raj said. He said the chamber's volunteers helped Indian investors for free through links with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Small Business Development Center and the Governor's Office.
--IANS
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