India TV : Apr 29, 2019, 10:20 AM
Country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) is planning to take variety of steps including enhanced localisation, increase in productivity and reducing overall costs in order to improve margins in the current fiscal. The auto major reported Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin of 14 per cent for 2018-19, down 1.9 per cent from 15.9 per cent in 2017-18.We are working very hard on cost cutting, there is lot of effort on cost side...as a company we are all committed to work towards it and ensure that it (margins) improve from here," MSI CFO Ajay Seth said.The company will carry on with its internal efforts without worrying about the external factors like foreign exchange rates, he added."External factors will be there but whatever is in our control we will try and work harder in terms of cost reduction and enhancing productivity," Seth noted.He said increasing localisation is an important part of the initiative."Localisation is a big drive now. Wherever we have been hit on account of foreign exchange, we are now looking at large targets for localisation," he said.Overheads are under severe scrutiny and the company is looking at vendors in terms of more productivity gains, Seth added.