I don't see how it's not alarming for Indians that one key person/company connected to the govt is the sole beneficiary of incoming businesses into India.
Andy is a long time observer of India but this is a blinkered take. FDI (foreign direct investment) in India has doubled to $28B+ from $14B last year for the same 6-month period, in the midst of a pandemic. May I humbly suggest that foreign investors pumping cash into India by choice have more skin the game than economic journalists writing op-eds in newspapers no matter how erudite they are. A good chunk of this cash, about 50%, is into Reliance's Jio platform but that cuts for and against.
China is 90%+ ethnic Han with one-language-multiple-dialects, one-party state with most population concentrated in a few provinces. Indian elections might have a hundred plus candidates running for one-seat for parliament. India is a multi-ethnic multi-religious democracy with hundreds of languages spread across diverse geographies. The entrenched nature of (in)decision making in a three-tiered democracy, a free press, coupled with woke activism and sclerotic judiciary makes progress slow especially compared to China.
In India building a single nuclear plant requires wading through two decades worth of protests by foreign non-profits [1] and final adjudication by the Supreme court that construction could proceed. Foreign funded non-profits (NGO in India speak) were criticized by the former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, for intervening in matters of India's development. Recently, a metro line's storage shed in Mumbai, India's commercial capital, was relocated after a multi year battle to save <400 trees requiring the whole project to be delayed for multiple years inconveniencing 100s of thousands who would use that line.
You can have the biggest bullet train network created from scratch in a decade in China but then you get the Four Pests campaign [2] which led to eating and trading in wildlife which in turn sparked Covid 70 years later, the resulting famine, the horrors of the Cultural revolution, the great leap forward, the one-child policy, Vietnam invasion, Tiananmen, Xinjiang internment camps, One-belt-one-road, and finally President for life.
All this not-withstanding, the pace of decision making has picked up and on-the ground observers in India are far more optimistic than a journalists writing in from Hong Kong nestled in the echo-chamber that is elite journalism.
I have no experience doing business in India and cannot meaningfully comment on how pleasant or unpleasant it is. I'm merely pointing out that being a "growing economy with tons of potential," as you put it, is not itself a sign of pleasantness.
I'd like to think the Indian government will have the interests of its own citizens at heart better than Google or Apple. India has a long and not very pleasant history with foreign corporations.
India needs to correct their shit, or US companies need to begin pulling out. The dilemma is that any company worth their commercial salt is not going to give up the business opportunity that is the Indian economy.
This seems like an outdated story (seems like it's a 2001 article).
(I'm ignoring fundamental problems like corruption etc. below)
As far as the anti-foreign investment sentiment goes, it sounds repulsive on face value, but those of us (Indians) who've lived in the US would want a Walmart (just as an example) destroying all the mom and pop shops? I think a cautious approach for foreign investment is the way to go, the income inequalities in India is already pretty bad, opening the floodgates without adequate measures of certain protectionist policies (not blanket protectionism) would make it worse. We need to realize that India is too big a market for multi-national companies to ignore completely; the Indian govt. should have the upper hand in any deal. And it should strike a deal which is in the interest of the Indian people.
This is what concerns me the most. If Walmart does to India what it did in US, it will destroy the lives of a lot of people in India. Also, India should try to be self sufficient as much as possible. Instead, we seem to be letting in foreign companies more and more killing any chance of an organic growth environment for Indian companies. Considering that Americans do not want Indian companies to sell their products in US (IT companies), it becomes even more surprising that our government would let such things to happen.
I understand the impulse to feel this way, but redistributing wealth through criminal syndicates who likely contribute very little real value to the Indian economy is not the way to go.
I think you are misinterpreting what this website is about. It is part of an initiative, that aims to end license raj and simplify the process of doing business in India. What you have stated is not an unknown. The purpose of this initiative is to address exactly that & more. The recent meetings with Japan/China are focused on improving infra ($35/$20 Billion investments respectively).
"The Government is committed to chart out a new path wherein business entities are extended red carpet welcome in a spirit of active cooperation. Invest India will act as the first reference point for guiding foreign investors on all aspects of regulatory and policy issues and to assist them in obtaining regulatory clearances. The Government is closely looking into all regulatory processes with a view to making them simple and reducing the burden of compliance on investors."
" The government is committed to improving the physical infrastructure. Development of dedicated freight corridors and investment in improving our ports and airports are underway. These corridors would house Industrial agglomerations along with smart cities. The private sector would be playing a significant role in these developmental works."
US has not injected billions into India! Capitalist companies trying to find cheaper and disposable labour has done it. Of course the US Government police allows that but the policy is there because of these companies not other way around.
> scamming America’s most vulnerable population
Nothing from that goes to Government taxes or public benefits. These people are not out of poverty by scamming.
please try not to down punch some positive news from “Third world countries” if you don’t have any constructive criticism
India might have been on a steady path of liberalization since the 90s, but it is still fundamentally a big-government country. There is a ridiculous amount of red tape every business has to go through to operate from and in India, and when it comes to tech regulation it tends to be just as trigger-happy to impose abrupt disruptive orders on businesses as the EU, if not more. India gets all this investment because it gets fancied as the next best alternative to China (in cheap labor), not because it is convenient or conducive to foreign players. India's ease of doing business is rather horrible in today's standards.
I have mixed feelings about the move of manufacturing to India. Whilst I would like Indians to be economically successful I can't ignore the ecological disaster that is happening in their country. It is absolutely terrifying. The air in Mumbai was unbreathable when I visited and it wasn't even ranking remotely near the top in the most polluted city air in India at the time (Delhi's was 3x as bad). Adding to this the much publicised water shortages, growing population putting strain on the already way over-burdened infrastructure, accelerating pace of urban development and a healthy democratic culture which doesn't instil confidence of them being able to quickly rectify these problems once Chinese style growth has been achieved I can only predict a disaster of biblical proportions for India in the not too distant future. I hope I'm wrong but I fear I'm not.
India follows the "Sheep Herd" mentality.
The whole country's economy is based on people getting into "Profitable" domains mostly following the success of a pioneer in the field.
The most recent example of this ideology is the "Business Process Outsourcing" industry.
New BPO units are propping up here and there at a dime a dozen leading to a quality deterioration in the final deliverable.
This process will continue till a saturation level is reached and then they will wait till another "Killer" domain picks up momentum.
Till then India will be in a so called "Calm Period" where nothing great and major takes place.
http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-the-w...
Successive Indian governments fail to realize that protectionism and capital control in reality have the exact opposite effect of what they intend. (after-effect of British raj once bitten twice shy)
They tried to stop capital flight but instead people just started doing Peer to peer FIAT transfers (WazirX owned by Chinese Binance) and trading via offshore LLCs.
India needs to stop being a nanny state... In fact in a truly free market Indians will often outperform global peers.
Being able to accept payments in crypto is a blessing for Indian firms looking to corner the global blockchain services and consulting market.
I think India needs the exact opposite of Bill Gates. We need more people who could industrialize India fast, employ masses of people and take us on par with China,Japan or Korea. India's political parties are left leaning and try to create Europe styled social safety nets. We need more libertarians and rich lobbyists and more copies of Ayn Rand to change the anti - laissez faire policies we have. It's still easy to start a Delaware C corp over internet from India than to register for a local corporation in most states.
Adani literally does stock manipulation and are friends with the government. Byju's will shutdown because of fraud, they are not downsizing. Flipkart is a literal copycat.
It is a shame because India has a lot of talented people but the whole education system and cultural aspects need to change drastically to even compete with China, forget rest of the world.
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