India has to move fast to break into global supply chains; rich country goal feasible: Jagdish Bhagwati

The influential American economist of Indian origin said it was possible for India to have a long period of strong growth and become a developed economy, while many developed nations are vulnerable to geopolitical turmoil.

“We will definitely make it. In contrast, many of the developed economies are not sound at all, as they are more affected by geopolitical stress points like the Russia-Ukraine conflict. They are also going to get involved in what happens with China in the Far East. So, we can no longer count on the western powers to remain ahead.” 

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“We, on the other hand, are not involved in such events at the moment. Therefore, if we keep up where we are now in terms of our current outstanding rate of growth and everything that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about, if that keeps up, we will be way ahead of the West,” Bhagwati said.

“So I am optimistic on that ground.”

Bhagwati was referring to Modi’s pledge last week to carry out structural reforms and inclusive growth, where he emphasized that the first three months of the National Democratic Alliance government’s third term in office was marked by a strong commitment to jobs and skills, sustainable growth, innovation, infrastructure building, quality of life and rapid growth.

Sitharaman has also expressed confidence that there would be “the steepest rise” in living standards in India in coming days.

The finance ministry had in its monthly economic review for August noted that trends indicated a strong foundation of macroeconomic stability in the country with steady growth, investment, employment and inflation trends, but flagged continued uncertainty in global economic prospects and advised monitoring of trends like the buildup of automobile inventory and slowing of fast-moving consumer goods in urban areas in the June quarter. Policymakers also are keeping an eye on fears of a recession in advanced economies.

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Bhagwati believes India should act fast and get a bigger share in global supply chains.

“With the global supply chain involving China getting broken, instead of moving in, we allowed other countries to break into it. Bangladesh was one of them. We have to make sure that we build up our own supply chains. We are thinking about it, but we have to move fast because if other supply chains get established, then it is all the more difficult to break into them,” he said.

To get a larger share of global trade, India also has to be more competitive and lower tariffs will help, he said. “Imports and exports are not independent; they are linked together. For exports to work and to build supply chains, we have to be able to import raw materials and components which make our supplies more competitive. If you suddenly run out of components, who will trust your supply chain? Certainty of supply chain is a very critical aspect. We have to be very smart,” Bhagwati said. Lower tariffs enable countries to import more and feed their supply chains, he said.

“Sometimes in the political economy, we see pressure getting built up to lower tariffs,” Bhagwati said, referring to former US president Donald Trump’s description of Indian customs tariffs as high. Trump, who had described India a “tariff king” in his first term in office, said in September India was an “abuser” of tariffs.

Last year, India reduced customs duty on several products imported from the US, including apples, almonds, lentils and chickpeas. That was part of removal of retaliatory duty imposed on US exports in 2019 after the US raised import duty on certain items.

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“We have to be active with the World Trade Organization to make sure the things of interest to us remain free from trade tariffs and restrictions. And I think we are aware of that,” Bhagwati said.

The only way India can take full advantage of its demographic dividend is by attracting investment in new productive capacity in both manufacturing and services, which can employ people, he said.

“There are two ways to do it. One is to invest yourself and the other is to invite foreign capital. In our case, foreign capital is willing to come in and create jobs because we have skilled manpower… We have to maximize that advantage and try and say look, ‘We will give you good terms and so on, come and invest and use our manpower,’ because the skilled manpower also then gets doubly trained and get additional skills. Thus, it creates the manpower resources for more investments to come in. It has a virtuous, snowballing effect.”