Mumbai:
"India must leverage its abundance of resources like
human capital, land, minerals and even livestock to emerge
as an economic superpower. Earlier, growing population
was regarded as a liability, but today, it is a growth
engine when leveraged with education and opportunities
for entrepreneurship. This is even more significant in
the light of rapidly ageing populations in the developed
countries." observed marketing authority Dr Jagdish
Sheth.
Dr
Sheth was delivering the keynote speech at a workshop,
"Will India ride the demographic wave?" organised
by Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS)
recently on the Goldman Sachs' prediction that the GDP
of the BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China)
will overtake the economies of the prosperous G-6 countries
by 2050.
Elaborating
on the significance of the resource advantage which countries
like India have and the need to add value to these resources,
Sheth said: "The value addition to wheat is as much
as 20 times when it is converted into a loaf of bread,
while the value addition to a rough diamond is 40 to 60
times when it is cut and polished into a diamond. However,
the value addition to human capital through education
is infinite," said Sheth.
Sheth
felt that a scorching pace of economic growth is possible
only through exports of products and services. "No
nation has become an economic superpower without strong
exports and to succeed in the most demanding export markets,
you must be globally competitive."
Explaining
the conditions for competing in the global market, Sheth
said: "It is necessary to be globally oriented first
to compete globally. Then it is imperative to establish
reputation for quality, increase productivity through
robust infrastructure, leverage human capital, globalise
public sector enterprises, invest in design and research,
get access to low cost capital, organise the global supply
chain and create a strong brand equity."
For
this, Sheth felt that it is necessary to reengineer industrial
policy by freeing it from ideology, globalising public
sector enterprises like railways and telecom, providing
incentives for quality, innovation and productivity, employment-led
growth, development of IPR regime and enforcement of a
sound environment policy. PSUs like BSNL or the Indian
Railways should be provided the operational freedom to
take advantage of economies of scale and expand to the
neighbouring markets through take-overs, acquisitions
and mergers, said Sheth.
At
the same time, Sheth said that there is a need to reengineer
national infrastructure, lay focus on international trade
through selective convertibility of currency and encourage
consolidation and quality initiatives in the domestic
industry.
"The
21st century would be driven by economics and countries
like India, China and America, which can value add and
become hubs for other trade blocks (North & South
America, EU & Eastern Europe, and Asia-Pacific region)
will be the leading economies of the world in this century,"
Sheth said. However, he cautioned that the largest companies
even in software in the 21st century may not be Indian.
The
workshop, organised by the students of NMIMS, sought to
delve into the pros and cons of the BRIC report of Goldman
Sachs. Out of the 35 B-Schools and universities which
participated in the workshop, four were short-listed for
final presentation. The presentations were evaluated by
an eminent panel of judges and the first prize was awarded
to Megha Gupta and Nandini Davar of the Faculty of Management
Studies, University of Delhi and the second prize was
awarded
to Abhishek Mehrotra and Shraddha Phatak of the School
of International Business, Indian Institute of Foreign
Trade, New Delhi.
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