- Both countries are expanding support for electronics and high-tech manufacturing, risking duplication instead of cooperation.
- Focus should shift from subsidies to shared standards, certification, and specialized production roles.
- Effective collaboration can strengthen resilience and create durable, long-term industrial ecosystems.
India and Turkey are kind of moving along similar paths when it comes to their industrial strategies, which is exactly why they should start thinking about more than just competing for the same factory sites. Recently, New Delhi has stepped up its support for electronics components, while Ankara’s HIT-30 program has been pouring large incentives into high-tech manufacturing. You can see the overlap especially in sectors like batteries, semiconductors, electric vehicles, and advanced electronics, areas where both nations are eager to attract multinational investments and bolster their local supply chains. According to India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme was given the green light in March 2025, with the goal of strengthening India’s component ecosystem and linking local companies to global value chains.
That kind of parallel effort, though, tends to lead into the usual trap: everyone’s racing to win a whole factory, instead of focusing on the tougher challenge, building an integrated, cross-border production system. Recently, India approved more proposals under its electronics scheme, signaling a renewed push in producing things like flexible printed circuit boards, connectors, heat sinks, lithium-ion cells, and rare-earth permanent magnets. Meanwhile, Turkey’s HIT-30 offers similarly hefty support pools for vehicles, batteries, and semiconductors. The danger here is that both governments might end up subsidizing capacity that could really be shared, while multinationals use these incentives to negotiate better terms without necessarily sharing their technologies, it’s kind of like a game of one-upmanship.
The reality is, though, that the economic relationship between India and Turkey is still quite superficial if you compare it to true industrial integration. Their trade has grown, but it’s mostly limited to basic goods on one side and imported finished parts on the other. Direct investments are still pretty modest, and interestingly enough, the bilateral economic committee has been pretty much inactive for years. That stuff matters because a solid manufacturing partnership involves more than just shipping cargo back and forth; it’s about design coordination, certification, tooling, testing, and repeating those commercial orders over and over.
A more practical approach, values-wise, would involve dividing up the labor within the same supply chain. For instance, in automotive electronics, one country could focus on producing circuit boards, sensors, or flexible circuits, while the other handles casings, thermal management, integration, or testing. Turkey already has a fairly sizeable base of automotive suppliers and a pretty strong machinery sector, while India brings the advantage of scale, a larger domestic market, and an expanding electronics manufacturing scene. The key isn’t that one country should stick to “software” and the other to “metal,” but rather that both should become specialized in tough, saleable parts, those that can be sold to third markets as well as used domestically.
When it comes to railways and renewable energy, a similar approach makes sense but only if they avoid simply duplicating entire ecosystems. India already has a substantial railway manufacturing industry and is exporting more trains and related equipment. Turkey, on the other hand, can focus on control systems, maintenance gear, and some subassemblies. Regarding renewables, both are backing solar, batteries, and wind manufacturing, but building separate, protected supply chains for each technology probably risks creating excess capacity, especially in the lower-margin, more commoditized stages. Instead, focusing on components like inverters, monitoring systems, battery management hardware, and custom turbine parts would be more effective.
For this to work well, policy design has to go beyond just announcing subsidies. Governments need to recognize testing standards mutually, establish rules for re-exported inputs, agree on intellectual property rights, and support tooling and working capital, not necessarily entire plants. The real measure should be how many components get jointly certified, how often repeat orders happen, and how much engineering work is actually being done in each country. If Ankara and New Delhi can zero in on just one automotive module or one rail or clean-energy subsystem, they might actually forge something much more durable than another headline-worthy factory project.
A broader takeaway here is that industrial strategy is no longer just about where a plant gets built. In electronics, mobile devices, logistics hardware, and advanced manufacturing, the winning model is increasingly about coordination, speed, and dependable sourcing rather than isolated national champions. India and Turkey each have strengths that can fit into a shared production map, but only if they treat collaboration as a long-term operating system rather than a one-off trade deal. If they do that, they may not just reduce duplication; they could also create stronger resilience for both domestic industries and export-oriented supply chains.
Takeaways - Competing for the same factory site is less useful than building a shared supply-chain role. - Electronics, batteries, EV parts, and semiconductors are the most obvious overlap zones. - The real value lies in sourcing, certification, tooling, and repeat production, not just subsidies. - India and Turkey could gain more by specializing in different parts of the same product system. - Stronger logistics and policy coordination would matter as much as capital incentives.
FAQ Q: Why is shared value-chain planning better than subsidy competition? A: Because it can reduce duplication, improve sourcing efficiency, and build more durable industrial links.
Q: Which sectors seem most suitable for India-Turkey cooperation? A: Automotive electronics, rail subassemblies, renewable-energy components, batteries, and advanced electronics.
Q: What is the biggest barrier to deeper cooperation? A: Limited institutional coordination, weak investment links, and a tendency to focus on headline factory wins instead of integrated production.
Source reference map: Inspired by the headline at: 1
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