Haier, a global leader in Home Appliances & Consumer Electronics, inaugurated its first industrial park in India. 

This new establishment will create 2,000 new direct jobs along with 10,000 indirect employment opportunities in the ecosystem. 

The memorandum of understanding between Haier Group and the Maharashtra government for the park was signed in the year 2015 taking the central government’s "Make in India" initiative forward. The government of India started this initiative hoping to create 100 million new jobs by 2022. This new facility of Haier is a small step towards contributing to the growth of India's economy. 

"India is one of the key markets for Haier and we have been able to grow at a phenomenal pace here in the last 13 years. The optimistic year on year growth signifies the potential that lies in the Indian market and hence it gives us an opportunity to further expand operations here. With the rise in demand, more jobs will be created and the locals will benefit from that," said Son Yujun, managing director of Haier India. 

About 60 percent of the workers in the park are locals. Swapnil Raskar is a happy man as his struggle for finding a job has ended. "I don't have to migrate to another state to earn a living. I live with my family and am also able to take care of my old parents. This is the best thing that could have happened to me," rejoiced Raskar.  

Currently, hundreds of Chinese companies, including heavy machinery makers, home appliance makers, IT device makers or electrical equipment makers, are operational in India. The next step is to start manufacturing in India to meet the domestic demands and make new exports from here.  

Eric Braganza, president of Haier India explained, "The opening of this factory will not just scale up the production capacity but will also decrease the overall dependence on imports and simultaneously increase exports from India in the near future."

Haier has won the prestigious "Make in India Awards for Excellence" under the consumer durable category in the year 2015 for adding to the economy. But the initiative has not done well and the government is planning to revamp it soon by including more sectors. In the last few years, the government tried to make the investment process easy for companies but the impact of the same is not visible on employment generation. The rate of unemployment has increased by 1.2 percent in the last five years.