New Delhi: For 23 minutes, India’s foreign minister made a strong pitch for the country to refocus its economic growth strategy on manufacturing, told business leaders on stage and in the audience to “stop looking for a China fix” and expressed his relief that New Delhi didn’t take economic advice from “other countries” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the launch of former NITI Aayog chief Amitabh Kant’s book Made in India Wednesday, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar spoke to a packed room at the India International Centre (IIC).
The German ambassador to India Phillip Ackerman and Counsellor at the Palestinian embassy Basem F Hellis, were among the big-wig attendees while business leaders like TV Narendran, CEO and MD of Tata Steel, and Sanjeev Bajaj, President of Bajaj FinServ, were part of the panel.
“I’ve always believed that this focus on services was actually an elegant excuse for being incompetent,” said Jaishankar, eliciting laughter across the room.
He emphasised that India will never be a great country if it is not a great manufacturer. He also batted for the Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) scheme which provides incentives for domestic manufacturers.
In his opening remarks, Kant, the current G20 Sherpa, distinguished India’s economic growth challenge from that of other countries like China and South Korea.
“India needs to industrialise without carbonising”, said Kant. He stressed the need for India to foray into sunrise sectors of growth like mobile manufacturing and electric mobility.
Kant’s book, Made in India, draws on economic lessons from other countries and details the challenges that lie before a growing India. It also wrestles with “what ifs” such as “what if the Bombay Plan worked?”.
The Bombay Plan refers to an economic plan for India proposed by eight top industrialists in January 1944 that sought a state-led mixed economy.
But Kant, in his book as well as in his address, made a strong argument for the private sector, arguing that once it is “unleashed” the country will be poised to become the third largest economy in the world with a high per capita income.
The panel for the book launch comprised Jaishankar (though he slipped out shortly after his address), Kant, Bajaj, Narendran, Naina Lal Kidwai, ex-president FICCI & HSBC, Mallika Srinivasan, chairman PSEB & CMD, TAFE and Shereen Khan, managing editor of CNBC-TV18.
Kant’s book draws from the Modi government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative that seeks to encourage companies to develop, manufacture and assemble products made in India as well as incentivise investments into domestic manufacturing.
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‘Stop looking for China fix’
Jaishankar touched upon China more than once.
For starters, while pushing for a refocus on manufacturing, he remarked: “We need to stop looking for a China fix. Indian growth cannot be built on Chinese efficiency.”
He then delved into comparisons between India and China made by Kant in his book. “Today, the gap of comprehensive national power between India and China is a big concern for us in foreign policy,” said Jaishankar.
Comprehensive national power is common parlance in foreign policy to refer to a totality of a country’s economic, military and political power.
“What often is debated as a foreign policy subject, is actually an economic and business outcome,” he added, and was met with claps from the audience.
The Indian foreign minister, in a veiled dig at the previous UPA governments, indicated who he felt was responsible for the large gap between India and China’s comprehensive national power.
He explained that at one point, there wasn’t a single Indian ambassador in the world who wouldn’t have had to explain to the country they were positioned in why it was so difficult to do business in India.
He credited Kant with helping overcome such burdens, with his contributions to the ease of doing business in India.
The foreign minister went as far as to say that improvements in ease of doing business have helped grow India’s “global stature”, and proves that India is finally moving towards “a politics of delivery”.
But not everyone in the audience shared Jaishankar’s disdain for the performance of previous Congress governments.
“You can’t argue with the fact that India needs to look forward with regard to economic growth. But I do not agree with trashing the past because our economy and our market is to some extent shaped by structures put in place by previous governments,” said Preeta Singh, head of event management company Teamwork Arts, who has helped organise the Jaipur Lit Fest (JLF) for the past decade.
‘Global polarisation a window of opportunity’
Without directly referring to the Ukraine war, the Indian foreign minister remarked that the current “global polarisation” is an opportunity for India.
“Global polarisation has made diplomacy far more complex but it is also a window of opportunity for many nations. Smart business moves can really open up many possibilities,” he said.
All the panellists nodded in agreement, especially the heads of Tata Steel and Bajaj Finserv.
Towards the end of his remarks, Jaishankar made a pitch for India to be, in a way, self-aware about how it wants to grow its economy.
“Make in India is also about thinking. It has to be think in India…At the end of the idea, we have to think through our growth strategy for ourselves,” he said.
Expressing a sigh of relief, he said it was a good thing that India did not take economic advice from other countries during the pandemic.
“[Apart from the] health advice we got from the world, we also got a lot of advice on how to economically handle the pandemic. Honestly, I’m glad we didn’t listen to much of it,” he said, sending laughter across the room.
His statement comes at a time when India is poised to be the fastest growing economy this year, while many countries in the region fight off inflation and after the US Federal Reserve hiked its key interest rate for the 10th time in 14 months.
“I see Make in India not as an economic or manufacturing programme but as a strategic statement,” Jaishankar said, in a final tip of his hat to Kant’s book.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)