Planning Commission Member N K Singh on Tuesday said there was a need to emulate and replicate the success of some of the leading Indian manufacturing companies to make the domestic industry globally competitive.

"The country needs to look at the ways and means to transfer microcosm excellence into macrocosm excellence. If a couple of Indian companies are able to cater to the multinational companies, definitely other companies can follow suit by emulating the right practices," he said addressing the CII annual conference.

He said companies should lay greater focus on aspects like quality and cost reduction and strong infrastructure to become formidable players for outsourcing by global manufacturers.

The steps like introduction of Electricity Bill would have far reaching effects on a crucial power sector. The Bill, slated to be passed by Rajya Sabha, would eventually make power cheaper. Efforts were also on to corporatise port trust and lease major airports of India.

"Look at the progress made on the National Highway Development Programme. There are some teething problems in the telecom sector, but I am very sure of the success on it," Singh said.

He termed the delay in implementation of value-added tax regime as a setback to bringing about fiscal reforms but hoped that it would be a temporary setback.

Bharat Forge chairman Baba Kalyani said the Indian automotive sector had amply demonstrated the potential of outsourcing and automotive exports from India rose to $800 million during 2002-03 from $250 million in 1997-98.

"The automotive export from India will grow exponentially in the next five years and companies like Sundaram Fasteners and Bharat Forge are good examples," he said.

He said though the government should provide infrastructure for a spurt in export growth, companies would also have to work on a total cost management and reduction of waste.

Drawing a parallel between India and China, he said now major global auto majors export components from India but the domestic auto market of China was growing at a phenomenal rate and Indian auto component makers could not afford to ignore China.

The manufacturing sector could replicate the success story of the IT and pharmaceutical industries, Sundaram Fasteners Chairman Suresh Krishna said.

He said companies which do not transform would not survive in the long run as the Indian economy is slowly integrating with the global economy.

"Now a serious effort is being made by companies abroad to source from India due to intense competitive pressures, quality and right price of Indian products and because their competitors are sourcing from India and China," Krishna said.

Stating that the time was right to expand globally, he said quality, delivery and price were important factors for Indian companies to become successful.

He said Sundaram Fasteners has set up a factory to manufacture fasteners in Shanghai (China) to cater to that market as well as for global outsourcing.

"As the Chinese auto market cannot be ignored, we have decided to set a base in that country with an initial investment of five million dollars which would be further increased to12.5 million dollars in the next 2-3 years," Krishna added.