Bajaj auto managing director Rajiv Bajaj on Saturday said he would like to source supplies from wherever it is available at competitive prices, including China.

He was speaking at a session on ‘Building Reliable Supply Chain’ at the second day of the three-day virtual Asia Economic Dialogue 2021, jointly convened by the ministry of external affairs and Pune International Centre.

Bajaj said that in terms of ease of doing business, operating something in one of the Asean countries is certainly easier than “what we encounter here in India”.

“We like to believe that we are a global company, and therefore, from a cultural and an operational point of view, this demands completeness or inclusiveness not just of employee gender, but also of having dealers, distributors and equally suppliers from all over the world.

“And that is why I believe that we must continue to trade with China. Because if we conduct our business at the exclusion of such a large country, such a large market, we will find ourselves incomplete over time, and we will be poorer for the loss of that experience,” Bajaj said.

Stating that in supply chain, commitment is important, he said that a sense of mutuality and reciprocity is indispensable to building the kind of very intricate supply chain that the auto industry needs to deliver the final product to customers.

Bajaj said, “I say this in the context of what happened in around June or July, when our government for whatever reasons, suddenly came down hard on imports, especially from China.”

“Now, to my mind, doing something like that is to cut your nose to spite your face. Because overnight, how can one source components that are not made in the domestic market, that you need to deliver products to customers?” he said.