Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman and chief executive of Hitachi Ltd. Photo: BloombergSingapore: Hitachi Ltd., the diversified Japanese conglomerate, said it’s seeking to double sales in the South Asian region where the company’s “most important project” is India’s first bullet train line. “This is a new challenge,” chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi, 71, said in an interview with Haslinda Amin in Davos. That’s a big challenge for us.”Japan’s success in India came last year after its government and rail companies had lobbied the US for years to sell their bullet train technology and found little success. India is poised to become the first nation to import the iconic ‘Shinkansen’ bullet train technology after Japan’s near-neighbour Taiwan, and that will be a highlight of India’s infrastructure upgrade program. Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japan’s Shinzo Abe formally kicked off a plan to build the 316 mile bullet train line—roughly the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Source: Mint January 23, 2018 13:52 UTC