Opportunity knocks

June 26, 2014 5:18 am

As China’s workforce shrinks and its wages rise, large amount of manufacturing jobs might migrate elsewhere. Why shouldn’t those jobs come to India?
 Kemppi is one of the leading manufacturers of arc welding equipment and a provider of solutions for productive welding. The company still relies on the basic values that have guided its operations from the very beginning. Rashmi Mohapatra analyses India’s hidden strength to become global manufacturing hub.
Comparison and opportunityManufacturing has been a suffering sector in India. Manufacturing sector contribution to the GDP has stagnated around 16 per cent, while in other emerging economies like China, Brazil and South Africa the manufacturing sector has grown much faster than the GDP. China controls 15 per cent of the world trade with in manufacturing, whereas India controls a measly 1.4 per cent. In the past 10 years, 150 million people have been transferred from agriculture to manufacturing in China. In India 183 million people are expected to join workforce over next 15 years.  Manufacturing will have to provide at least 70 million of these jobs.
As China’s workforce shrinks and its wages rise, large amount of manufacturing jobs might migrate elsewhere. Here surely is an opportunity for India. Why shouldn’t those jobs come to India?
BarriersThe answer is that, India has too few  of the right sort of firms or workers and too many of the wrong rules. There are certainly some impressive Indian manufacturers, especially in car making, but they prefer to employ sophisticated machinery rather than abundant labour.

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