Indian Economy: News and Discussion

[another_armchair]

We've been talking about it for years. We are not Singapore where it is impractical to manufacture garments locally. We have a big ass population sitting on its hinds whose youthful years are spent idling away doing odd jobs that are barely enough to provide a decent meal for an entire day.

India-B'desh FTA Threat to Local Textile Industry in Ludhiana | Ludhiana News - Times of India

The textile industry in Ludhiana, India, is facing a serious threat due to the free trade agreement between India and Bangladesh. The industry is seeking government intervention to restrict the import of garment and knitwear fabric from Bangladesh and increase the opportunity for exporting goods...

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

 

[RoaringTigerHiddenDragon]

View attachment 241611

Modinomics in a nutshell. Most disgusting thing I have read all week. Our opposition should have been attacking Modi and that useless cretin Piyush Goyal for completely failing in this for the last decade, but instead the jokers are busy fighting on irrelevant rubbish or trying to make the country back to 1960s economy through caste politics and freebies. It is still not too late to correct this. Announce massive electricity rebates to garment sector and begin to consolidate garment factories into larger scale integrated units

Such news where mass labor employment decreases in India is pathetic. Reality is if Bihar or UP or Bengal was a separate country, they would be LDCs and gotten all that GSP+ benefits. India must find a way to get these benefits so we can compete effectively. But of course the ministry of commerce and textiles has been a joke. Piyush Goyal keeps saying India will export $2 trillion by 2030, which means plenty of mass manufacturing is needed. Is this how this mass manufacturing in poorer districts in India will happen? This guy is a big joker.
BJP thinks that we are already upper middle income and don’t need such mass jobs. They are wrong. BJP is pushing India toward jobless growth with freebies given to the masses for political support. This will weaken India economically. Reducing logistics cost helps but still cannot compete with tariff waivers from developed countries. We need much better and professional economics managers and urban development managers in every district in India.

 

[Physx32]

I have now traveled about 10 cities in India - all major metros plus select tier 2s - and visited several non-IT campuses like clinics, schools, offices, retail stores etc. Here are my findings: India is headed toward a upper middle income trap. Reasons below.
- work ethics is really poor in India. Employees do not keep their areas neat and clean nor do they adopt latest digital practices. People do not take accountability or ownership for their work. In almost all places where my name was needed, they got my spellings wrong and did not even ask me if I should correct it. Almost all places were using paper and not computers to type my information in.
- most places were under capacity. That is everything from clinics to offices were built small and under capacity. Roads are under capacity and so were train terminals etc. Nothing is planned for future capacity expansions.
- many youth are roaming around or doing menial jobs and earning very less - probably just 10000 a month.
- public transport is terrible , with way under capacity of metro trains and buses.
- cities are extremely crowded. There are many outsiders coming in with no skills. Construction work is done in primitive ways with construction waste never cleared.
- clinics and hospitals are dirty with no one caring about dirtiness. That is they don’t even care or it does not even register that the premises of healthcare areas have to be clean
- talking to several people, I find that 9 out of 10 have very little knowledge of outside world, technology, how people live, startup world, proper education etc. They have no idea that you have to be disciplined to make money. The mindset is still that I will make money from dowry, cheating taxes, real estate fraud, black money, joining politics , corruption etc. This is the same mindset that existed in 1990s apparently.
- all the expectations is still to do low level jobs like peons, reception desks, driving rickshaws, small bill collectors etc - all extremely low wage jobs. No aspirations at all to move up. In fact people want to move down - that is not work and live somehow through very basic means like multi family shack up in the same house.
- many more to list here.

Almost all of the purchases, lifestyle aspirations, progressive thinking, India must become upper middle income, ethics and honesty must be there etc - comes from less than 1 out of 10 people I interacted with. This is disappointing and frankly bad news for our future. Don’t know how we are going to get our people sophisticated to even get them to higher wages and productivity. I think it is very difficult.

It seems this is the first time you're here and got a huge shock. Did you really expect India to be like South east asian countries in terms of infra and cleanliness? Remember that we're a $2.7k per capita country, there's a long road ahead.

 

[angryIndian]

It seems this is the first time you're here and got a huge shock. Did you really expect India to be like South east asian countries in terms of infra and cleanliness? Remember that we're a $2.7k per capita country, there's a long road ahead.

India's public infrastructure and cleanliness are even worse than those of some poorer countries.

For example,Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, with a per capita income of $1000, boasts of a much cleaner streets and better public infrastructure when compared to major Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore.

 

[NutCracker]

Our country lacks the rule enforcement regarding the urban construction projects. That DUST is the biggest contributor to the ugliness of the streets and it gets a notch of two above when mixed with the monsoon rain.
Not just the aesthetics but health is also getting screwed in the ever growing urban localities .

 

[sauntheninja]

India's public infrastructure and cleanliness are even worse than those of some poorer countries.

For example,Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, with a per capita income of $1000, boasts of a much cleaner streets and better public infrastructure when compared to major Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore.

The built up areas of our cities are fine same as other cities. Just having line markings pothole free roads and footpaths will make our cities look good and be functional.

 

[Tejbrahmastra]

 

[angryIndian]

The built up areas of our cities are fine same as other cities. Just having line markings pothole free roads and footpaths will make our cities look good and be functional.

No, it is not.

Most Major Indian cities reeks of unplanned growth and urbanization. They are overcrowded well beyond their capacities and congested to an extent that even traveling a kilometer takes hours, Despite having well-funded municipalities, they have no proper waste management and have such terrible drainage systems that even a drizzle can flood the entire city. The Air and Water quality is well past the danger mark,so much so that living there is akin to living in Chornobyl.

 

[Crazywithmath]

PLI and MITRA for textiles is a big joke, how incompetent can one be to simply ignore something as basic as textiles?

PM MITRA has not been made operational yet. They are floating the tenders only now and bids will be awarded before the elections kick in. In another year or two, those parks can be made operational and the economics of scale can kick in. 'Coincidentally', BD's GSP era will end in 2026 - following which an open competition will follow. GoI has always targeted this timeline only (look up their old PIB bulletins) - even though many members here went upset over their progress.

Want to have some more details?

Interim budget has made token allocations on leather and footwear PLIs - they will take them up after the elections. And additional PLIs on textiles are already on the cards.

They tried other antics in their first term - input credit and MEIS to name a few. These things did not work! MEIS, in fact, ran into troubles at the WTO. All these experiments made incremental gains only and were eventually replaced with RoDTEP etc.

Except that .... well, even RoDTEP did not work as expected. At that point, govt decided to bring in the combination of PM MITRA and PLIs. If even this does not work (they should taste more success - given the significant allocations and state support this time around) they will come up with something else. Policies will be undergoing revisions until things are set straight.
Now, where have you seen this before? Electronics?

 

[Physx32]

PM MITRA has not been made operational yet. They are floating the tenders only now and bids will be awarded before the elections kick in. In another year or two, those parks can be made operational and the economics of scale can kick in. 'Coincidentally', BD's GSP era will end in 2026 - following which an open competition will follow. GoI has always targeted this timeline only (look up their old PIB bulletins) - even though many members here went upset over their progress.

Want to have some more details?

Interim budget has made token allocations on leather and footwear PLIs - they will take them up after the elections. And additional PLIs on textiles are already on the cards.

They tried other antics in their first term - input credit and MEIS to name a few. These things did not work! MEIS, in fact, ran into troubles at the WTO. All these experiments made incremental gains only and were eventually replaced with RoDTEP etc.

Except that .... well, even RoDTEP did not work as expected. At that point, govt decided to bring in the combination of PM MITRA and PLIs. If even this does not work (they should taste more success - given the significant allocations and state support this time around) they will come up with something else. Policies will be undergoing revisions until things are set straight.
Now, where have you seen this before? Electronics?

PM MITRA aims to achieve $100B export by 2030. I think it's too slow and most of the market leaving China will be captured by Vietnam, BD and other SEA countries.

 

[SKC]

India's public infrastructure and cleanliness are even worse than those of some poorer countries.

For example,Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, with a per capita income of $1000, boasts of a much cleaner streets and better public infrastructure when compared to major Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore.

It's always Rwanda whose example is given to us. Rwanda is an outlier not a general trend.
It's any extremely small country with really small population.

 

[Crazywithmath]

PM MITRA aims to achieve $100B export by 2030. I think it's too slow and most of the market leaving China will be captured by Vietnam, BD and other SEA countries.

BD is yet to start moving up the value chains like the cheenis and a few ASEAN nations have. Much of their exports are directly dependent on GSP benefits and their industry is already panicking over cuts in export incentives.

Bangladesh lowers cash incentive for exporters to prepare for post-LDC era

The government has cut the export subsidy for almost all sectors to reduce the pressures on Bangladesh's coffers and bring down the rates gradually

www.thedailystar.net

In absence of preferential treatments, BD is not at all export competitive - their economic complexity has actually decreased in recent years.

Exports worth US$ 100 billion from 7 large scale PM MITRA parks alone seem very decent and in fact, quite ambitious, if I am being honest. How is that problematic?

 

[Blademaster]

Ok India needs to launch sanctions against EU companies and officials for any dealings with Pakistan and any terrorist organizations.

I am sick of this one sided treatment. It is time that we return the favor.

 

[Physx32]

India's public infrastructure and cleanliness are even worse than those of some poorer countries.

For example,Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, with a per capita income of $1000, boasts of a much cleaner streets and better public infrastructure when compared to major Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore.

Here's a street image from your favourite Kigali:

Truly much superior infra that Delhi, Mumbai combined

 

[Crazywithmath]

BD is yet to start moving up the value chains like the cheenis and a few ASEAN nations have. Much of their exports are directly dependent on GSP benefits and their industry is already panicking over cuts in export incentives.

Bangladesh lowers cash incentive for exporters to prepare for post-LDC era

The government has cut the export subsidy for almost all sectors to reduce the pressures on Bangladesh's coffers and bring down the rates gradually

www.thedailystar.net

In absence of preferential treatments, BD is not at all export competitive - their economic complexity has actually decreased in recent years.

Exports worth US$ 100 billion from 7 large scale PM MITRA parks alone seem very decent and in fact, quite ambitious , it I am being honest. How is that problematic?

The rot runs much much deeper in BD - when compared with their competitors;

Ideally, a weakened Taka would have helped Bangladesh's export economy. However, the politically powerful ready-made garments (RMG) sector follows a different playbook.

They insist on cheap import of fabrics and other inputs. Part of the export revenues are parked abroad. A doctored balance sheet, showing minimal or no returns, helps them extract money benefits - including non-repayment of loans - at home.

Dhaka decided to keep the RMG lobby happy by keeping the exchange rates low. Bangladeshi workers sent money from abroad through Hundi (Hawala). The exchange rate suffered a free fall.

Bangladesh: An economic disaster, not just a forex crisis, is in the making

When competitors report a sharp decline in specific garment exports, shipments of those from Bangladesh grew in July-August. From $48 billion in 2021, forex reserves are a lowly $21 billion. A $12 billion gap between shipment values and export receipts suggests corruption or data fudging...

www.moneycontrol.com

The target is good but the time to implement is extremely slow. Instead of 2030, it should have been FY25/FY26.

'Coincidentally', BD's GSP era will end in 2026 - following which an open competition will follow. GoI has always targeted this timeline only (look up their old PIB bulletins)

 

[Blademaster]

That is what worries me. Instead of moving to other states, they will simply leave India, and it has happened in the past when we lost over 70% of the voice and call center business to the Philippines.

It was no big loss to us. It helped jumpstarted our IT industry and other forms of industry.

 

[Physx32]

BD is yet to start moving up the value chains like the cheenis and a few ASEAN nations have. Much of their exports are directly dependent on GSP benefits and their industry is already panicking over cuts in export incentives.

Bangladesh lowers cash incentive for exporters to prepare for post-LDC era

The government has cut the export subsidy for almost all sectors to reduce the pressures on Bangladesh's coffers and bring down the rates gradually

www.thedailystar.net

In absence of preferential treatments, BD is not at all export competitive - their economic complexity has actually decreased in recent years.

Exports worth US$ 100 billion from 7 large scale PM MITRA parks alone seem very decent and in fact, quite ambitious , it I am being honest. How is that problematic?

The target is good but the time to implement is extremely slow. Instead of 2030, it should have been FY25/FY26.

 

[Blademaster]

Taiwan entering the game

Vinfast is a Vietnamese company, not a Taiwanese company.

 

[Blademaster]

The built up areas of our cities are fine same as other cities. Just having line markings pothole free roads and footpaths will make our cities look good and be functional.

Disagree. I just concluded my visit to India and I have to say that Delhi is backsliding. It was definitely cleaner than 4 years ago but only because of that massive cleanup in preparations for the G20. Now G20 has been concluded, Delhi gov't had not bothered to do regular cleanup or maintenance since and I see trash piling up all over the place.

When I went on a trip to Haridwar and to Corbett Park in car rides, I saw pollution and trash all over the places and everywhere., broken and overflowing trash bins, broken tiles or potholes even in new constructions. It seems that we get the money to build the stuff and keep the maintenance money as bribes. No wonder why so many of our shiny stuff goes to shit in short order. State and local governments don't spend the necessary money to do upkeep and maintenance.

 

[Blademaster]

Here's a street image from your favourite Kigali:

View attachment 241651

Truly much superior infra that Delhi, Mumbai combined

No worries, I even saw this kind of condition in Delhi, the outskirts of Delhi.