A few days ago, I came across a post titled ‘Can India Compete with China’ on the website Management Paradise. I was really surprised to see the response of people on this topic, and even more surprised to see that most of the people were giving illogical answers to the topic being discussed.
Most of the people who gave answers either do not know the real situation in India and China or they don’t want to know the truth.
I personally feel that India cannot compete with China anytime soon. I have my own reasons to believe in this. Let me highlight a couple or more of them.
1) India liberalised its economy in 1991 and China did it after 1995, and that too not entirely as it is still reeling under communism. China became a very hardcore player and started undertaking aggressive strategies to attract the world towards it. India, on the other hand, just freed the economy and sat back. The laid back attitude of the industries and people in India added to the already existing lethargy.
2) Even under communism, China continued to grow at a very amazing speed whereas India enjoyed a steady growth rate. The bureaucracy and the political environment in India is what hampered the overall growth of India.
3) In China, people either do or die. In India, we have options of doing, enjoying, resting (more than necessary) etc etc..but we don’t have the do or die attitude. Just take a look at our new 11th five year plan for the economy and most of you will understand what I am saying. Did you know that we have made money amounting to almost Rs. 19000 Crores from Special Economic Zones (SEZ’s), but have invested and lost more than Rs. 90,000 Crores in these SEZ’s by giving them tax benefits and illogical leverages.
4) Agriculture is supposed to be the backbone of the Indian Economy, but most people don’t know that the aim of the 11th five year plan(2007-2011) is to accelerate the agricultural growth to 4% of the entire GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Just 4%!! and the government still says that agriculture is the backbone of the Indian Economy.This plan also wants to a) provide primary education to at least 50% of the Indian population free of cost b) provide secondary education to at least 50% of the population at reduced rates c) develop and maintain important roads in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai etc d) provide clean water to at least 90% of the population etc. From this isn’t it quite evident that previous governments have not been able to provide even the basic amenities to Indians?
5) In India, we have only 40 vocational and technical areas in which we can get training. In China, people have access to more than 4000 vocational and technical courses!!!
6) India seems to borrow almost every ideology from China, except for communism. We borrowed the concepts of SEZ’s , proper infrastructure development , industrial licensing policy etc etc etc.. from …China!!
7) China in the past few years has become the world’s second largest economy after the United States. And where are we? Can anyone answer this?
Its amazing that many global organisations like Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Nokia etc arrived in China, even before India actually knew about these organisations! Hell, Wal-Mart and Starbucks have still not arrived in India!
I am not a person who loves to criticise India. I love my country, however, I would really like to take pride in saying that I am an “Indian”. Once we get more strict and stringent with our policies and cut down the bureaucracy in India, we can “think” of at least arriving at the stage where China is right now. However, I don’t see this happening anytime at least in the next 5 years!!!
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