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ECO-BIZ FORUM

November 16, 2009

Forum calls on India, Japan to work
together to cope with environmental issues
On Sept. 5, Nikkei Inc. and The Energy and Resources
Institute (TERI) of India held the second of four
symposiums on the subject: “Global Eco-Business
Forum — Bringing Japan’s Advanced Eco-friendly
Technologies to the World and Building International
Partnerships with Nations.”
The forum is designed to inform the world of Japanesecompanies’ overseas environmental activities as well as
how their environment-related businesses are advancing.
With its cross-media use of newspapers, symposiums andthe Internet, the forum is intended to provide an opportunity
to consider Japan’s role in the international community.
The second forum was held in New Delhi. It wassponsored by Japanese Business Alliance for Smart Energy
World wide, Toshiba Corp., Heat Pump & Thermal Storage
Technology Center of Japan, and Mitsubishi Corp. It wassupported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry,
Japan Finace Corp., the Japan Bank for International
Cooperation and Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO)
as well as the Japan Center for Economic Research.

Huge opportunities in bilateral cooperation
RAJENDRA PACHAURIChairman, Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change; director general, TERI
I am very grateful to all those
who have been involved inbringing together this event,because it clearly goes beyond
symbolism and establishes theimportance of Japan and India
working together to usher in a
new revolution.
We have seen several technological revolutions over thepast 150-odd years. The beginning can be attributed to amajor change in the way
human affairs were conductedby the invention of the steam
engine, which brought about amajor shift in production activities and even in locomotion. It
ushered in the age of fossilfuels, and that age was reinforced further when the automobile became a common sightall over the world.
But today what we need is aset of technologies that would
reverse the damage that wehave done to the environment,
essentially associated with thetwo major technological changes
that I have just mentioned.
I can’t think of a closer andmore relevant partnership
than what I hope this event
symbolizes and which I hope
will also provide the substancefor pursuing in the future.
I have long had close involve-ment with Japanese organizations and institutions, and I
have traveled to your country
at least 130 times. I am a great
admirer of Japanese society fora variety of reasons, one ofwhich is the fact that Japan has
been able to blend traditional
culture with modernity.
I also believe that Japan
has been uniquely successful
in developing technologies
that are resource-efficient.
Having been a student of energy development, I have a great
deal of admiration and muchto learn from what Japan wasable to do in the wake of thetwo oil price shocks in the1970s and early 1980s. They
brought about a major andremarkable shift in the use ofenergy, as a result of which theJapanese economy did
extremely well during the1980s and 1990s. That example gives us a great deal of confidence that if a nation clearly
articulates a goal and establishes the political will to bringabout a major shift, it certainly can be done. So we have a lot
to learn from Japanese society.
What I want to emphasize isthe fact that there is a businessrationale for Japan and India
working together. That rationale has strengthened muchfurther, now that we have anational action plan on climate change. The advisory
council to the prime minister,of which I am privileged to be amember, has approved in principle two major missions: thesolar mission and the energyefficiency mission. These could
open up enormous business
opportunities for Japaneseand Indian organizations towork together.
These really would be revolutionary steps, because if you
look at the staggering scale onwhich the country intends tobring about a major transformation of the way energy isused in this country, then I
think there are unique business and technological challenges available.
There are several reasons
Japanese and Indian organizations can work together. Firstly, there is a complementarity
in terms of our being able to do

things at much lower cost since
our cost of technical and scientific manpower is understandably much lower. The skills in
the Indian market are second
to none, and therefore there is
a complementarity in ourbeing able to work together.
India is a huge market; if we
can evolve technologies jointlythat suit our conditions, youwill have this largest market in
the world.
Very soon, India will have alarger population than China.
With respect to increasing
incomes and buying power, if
growth continues as we allhope it will, then clearly theIndian market will be an
extremely attractive destination for Japanese goods andservices. There will be an
important partnership between Japan and India.
All of this is extremely
important, because the problem of climate change threatens every part of the globe. The
IPCC has provided overwhelming evidence on the scientificrealities of climate change, andwhile every leader in the world
has accepted the need for taking action, we just don’t see evidence of the level of action thatis required.
What we should really beworking on is a range of technologies, and all of these aregoing to be absolutely essential.

Industrial park experiments with alternative energy
ASHOK ASHTA
Deputy general manager, Business
Development & CSR, India BusinessSupport Center, Hitachi
As one enters the state ofRajasthan from Delhi, one
comes upon Nimrana, home of
the 15th century fort palace forwhich it is named. On the otherside of the highway is anemerging industrial area. Factories in these areas are coming together to create a sharedenergy center that will encourage development and foreign
investment by offering more
efficient sources of power.
The plan for the Nimranashared energy center has been
adopted under the early bird
scheme for the Delhi-Mumbai
Industrial Corridor. Thisregion was launched in thisexciting direction in 2007,
when the Indian government
announced plans to establish a
dedicated freight corridor covering approximately 1,500km
between Delhi and Mumbai.

In anticipation of the DMIC
projects in July 2006, Rajasthan State Industrial Development & Investment Corp.
partnered with JETRO todevelop an exclusive Japan
investment park in Nimrana.
However, there have provento be infrastructure hurdles. So
10 Japanese companies participating in the Nimrana investment park planned to use theprivately generated power for
regular use and only one company planned to use the publicgrid in the future. Indeed,existing industrial users inother parts of Nimrana reported huge unpredictable outages
for about six hours a day.
Power generation costs
were also high using diesel generators. So a solution was needed to overcome the problems of
unstable power from the gridand the high cost of the environment-unfriendly diesel generators. The shared energycenter presented solutions in
October, envisioning the use ofgas turbine generators fueledby natural gas.
Existing generators will beused concurrently while anadvanced operating control system will coordinate optimum
power supply from the different
channels. The plant will also belinked to the transformer substation of the public grid so thatdifferent companies will be able
to draw power as needed.
However, the global economic crisis has created future

uncertainty in terms of attracting new investment and also interms of determining the exact
power needs of existing tenants. Diesel generators purchased by companies that havealready started operations in
Nimrana are now in surplus.
The solution that we are considering is to link the existing
diesel generators through a common 33kw bus. However, thediesel generators bought by thedifferent companies have different capacities. So we neededsolutions for connecting dissimilar-capacity diesel generators.
The first phase is an optimal power supply system using
the diesel generators, and thefinal phase will be a system
when connected to the gas turbine and commercial grid. The
expected benefits of high-quality, economical and eco-friendly
power in areas of unstable commercial power supply will contribute to the development ofindustry appropriate to Nimrana Industrial park.

Differences
could be real
assetsKIYOSHI KUROKAWA
Professor, National Graduate Institutefor Policy Studies
In any international meeting it isvery difficult to get the Japanesepeople to speak up; on the otherhand, it is very difficult to get theIndians to not speak up. Speaking and expressing themselves isthe foundation of their democracy, which made India one of thelargest decentralized democratic
countries in the world.
India has 26 official languages. In contrast to India,
both a strength and a weaknessof Japan is its centrally driven
homogeneity. This difference
itself could be both a strengthand a weakness. Played right,
in this globalizing world it
could be a real asset in developing collaboration.
Although we are separated bya great physical distance, we still
have a certain historical background. India has huge potential
for growth, with a potential market of 1.1 billion people, and why
not work together with India?
But even in New Delhi, the number of experts from Japan is verysmall compared to China. Perhaps one reason is that we are
not familiar enough with theway of thinking and the differences and similarities of Indian
citizens and our potential business partners.
There are many Indian students at the moment aroundthe world but the number ofIndian students studying inJapanese colleges and universities is disproportionately small.
If you start negotiating withIndia’s businesspeople you may
find it very difficult because
their strength is in negotiation
skills and finance. But I think
once you make a friend, thatwill be a great opportunity. I
would like to welcome many
Indians to come to Japan, but I
also must urge Japanese students of business or bankers
and others to go to India.