When things begin to go bad, the perception of people makes it worse.
—James Mirrlees (Scottish, 1936-)
Word for the day
Ullage (n)
The amount by which the
contents fall short of filling a container, as a cask or bottle.
The quantity of wine,
liquor, or the like, remaining in a container that has lost part of its
contents by evaporation, leakage, or use.
Malice towards none
If the government can convince
that "nominal growth" is the "real growth", and raise
inflation to 6%, we will definitely have sustainable double digit growth.
First random thought this morning
While 24X7 news channels are scaring people by showing images of
furious floods across the country, the official IMD data indicates that about 50%
of country has received normal rains so far this season. The rest of the areas
are either dry or inundated. As the monsoon progress has slowed considerably,
last week, only about one third of the country received normal rainfall, while
another one third was mostly dry.
The statistics however tells that the rainfall so far has only
been 7% less than the long term average.
How does one decide if monsoon is good, normal or poor?
High street or flea market
In past many decades, cheaper labor has been at the core of Indian
exports competitiveness. The traditional engine of Indian export growth, e.g.,
textile, gems and jewelry, ITeS, banking services, CRAMs, etc. have all been
mostly running primarily on the fuel of wage rate arbitrage.
Though it would be foolish to deny the specialized skills and
expertise of various businesses, but I must say that the primary driver of
export growth has been the availability of abundant skilled labor at much
cheaper rates.
Engineering exports, especially automotive sector exports, could
be marked as exception. Perhaps because the development and growth of this
sector has been primarily driven by companies from developed countries,
especially Japan and Germany, known for manufacturing prowess and process
orientation. These foreign OEMs have successfully introduced best practices,
processes and work culture in their Indian operations, besides investing in
local enterprises to make them competitive enough to become their global
partners. Otherwise, consider the following:
(a) How many Indian brands
do you find in top 100 global apparels brands? How many Indian textile
designers are known globally? Though a number of Indian textile manufacturers
like Arvind Mills, figure in the list top 100 textile producers of the world.
(b) How many Indian jewelry
designers are there in top 100 globally? Though, India is one of the largest
manufacturers of jewelry products in the world.
(c) India is widely
considered as the IT powerhouse of the world. How many Indian IT products and innovations
could you recall?
(d) We have a fledgling
CRAM industry that does research function for almost all renowned global
pharmaceutical innovators, on contract basis. But how many "New
Drugs" have been innovated by Indian companies in past seven decades?
(e) Indian bankers and
technology professionals manage operations (both front desk and back end), of
global banking giants. But how many Indian banks figure in top 50 global banks
list?
(f) Despite being
surrounded by hostile neighbors ever since independence, India is still one of
the largest importers of arms and ammunitions. We figure nowhere in the global
list of arms suppliers.
The point I am trying to
make is that innovation, advanced technology, branding, niche marketing and
high value addition has been mostly missing from the Indian export enterprise.
We have either been a low cost, faceless contract manufacturer for the rich of
the world or a flea market selling spurious goods to the poor of the world.
This needs to change, and change fast, if we need to turn trade balance
positive on sustainable basis....to continue
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