[🇮🇳] India VS China

[Saif]

Source : https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/india-wants-be-chinas-gateway-the-west-3664296

India wants to be China's gateway to the West

India is warming up to its northern neighbour. The South Asian country's annual economic report recommends courting investment from China rather than integrating into the country's supply chains. That lays out a way for companies from Shein to BYD to keep selling in Western markets despite rising suspicion towards the People's Republic. Much depends on how the Sino-American trade war plays out.

In the survey for the year ended March released on Monday, India's Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran laid out the two options for the country to benefit from companies shifting supply chains out of China. He argues that it is more effective to encourage manufacturers from the People's Republic to set up factories in India and export to Western markets than to import China-made parts for assembly and re-export.

Betting on investments rather than low-value imports would help cut New Delhi's $85 billion annual trade deficit with its neighbour. It would also shield India against any future moves by Beijing to restrict exports of critical material.

Ideas floated in the survey do not necessarily translate into policy action. But the push for Chinese direct investment found an advocate in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, the first member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet to back the idea. That statement is significant, coming four years after India stepped up scrutiny of investment from its neighbours following a skirmish with Chinese troops. Signs of a thaw are visible elsewhere, too.

Fast-fashion giant Shein, which is gearing up for an initial public offering in London, is partnering with $242 billion Reliance Industries to source merchandise from the world's fifth-largest economy. China's SAIC Motor formed a joint venture with JSW Group in March to build and sell electric cars in India.

Those are still exceptions, though. As of March 2023, 54 foreign direct investment proposals from entities based in China and Hong Kong were awaiting official approval. It's a reminder that parts of the Indian establishment are uncomfortable with opening the floodgates to Chinese capital. Beijing's level of comfort with companies investing in India, especially in strategic industries with potential for technology transfer, is unclear too.

More importantly, the US-China trade war is still in flux, and the upcoming presidential election in November adds to the uncertainty. At the very least, India's economic ambitions might offer a handy blueprint for the road ahead.​

 

[Mustafa.Iq]

Better to side with China. Chinese are more honest and reliable than these Indians. Indians don't want to implement plebiscite on the Kashmir dispute.

 

[Saif]

Better to side with China. Chinese are more honest and reliable than these Indians. Indians don't want to implement plebiscite on the Kashmir dispute.

India wants to swallow all of South Asia. China is the only hope for the rest of the South Asian countries to safeguard their territorial integrity. China's BRI and CPEC will dash India's hope to gobble up her smaller neighbors.

 

[Saif]

India foreign secretary to visit China to revive ties

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri will visit Beijing on Jan. 26-27 to discuss steps to boost ties with China, as the Asian neighbours revive relations that were strained since a deadly military clash on their disputed frontier in 2020. New Delhi and Beijing reached a milestone pact in O

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

India foreign secretary to visit China to revive ties
REUTERS
Published :
Jan 23, 2025 20:12
Updated :
Jan 23, 2025 20:12

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri Photo : Collected

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri will visit Beijing on Jan. 26-27 to discuss steps to boost ties with China, as the Asian neighbours revive relations that were strained since a deadly military clash on their disputed frontier in 2020.

New Delhi and Beijing reached a milestone pact in October on lowering military tensions on their Himalayan border and have begun taking baby steps to restore ties following talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Russia.

India’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Misri’s visit “flows from the agreement at the leadership level to discuss the next steps for India-China relations, including in the political, economic, and people-to-people domains”.

The military and diplomatic tensions sparked by the 2020 clash hurt ties in other areas as India slowed visa approvals for Chinese nationals, banned popular Chinese mobile apps and tightened scrutiny of investments from China.

The world’s most populous nations share a poorly demarcated border which runs along the Himalayas and has been a source of tension for decades, including a brief but bloody war in 1962.

India is not looking to reduce the number of troops along the northern frontier in winter, the country’s army chief said last week, adding that it will review summer deployment based on outcome of talks.​

 

[Krishna with Flute]

India wants to swallow all of South Asia. China is the only hope for the rest of the South Asian countries to safeguard their territorial integrity. China's BRI and CPEC will dash India's hope to gobble up her smaller neighbors.

A rat is expecting from a cat to protect it.

 

[TheNewb77]

Better to side with China. Chinese are more honest and reliable than these Indians. Indians don't want to implement plebiscite on the Kashmir dispute.

 

[Saif]

A rat is expecting from a cat to protect it.

Who is the rat and who is the cat?

 

[Krishna with Flute]

India wants to swallow all of South Asia. China is the only hope for the rest of the South Asian countries to safeguard their territorial integrity. China's BRI and CPEC will dash India's hope to gobble up her smaller neighbors.

One more country ready to add itself into the list of Pakistan, SL, Some African country to mortgage it sovereignty for so called economic benefits or from artificial fear of a hypothetical enemy, which is a country which liberated it and resolve all border issues with mutual agreed terms. Some people that country believes that it want sollow it. A country which has border issues with all its neighbours and with others with whom even it doesn't share the border will protect it
.Best of luck.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Who is the rat and who is the cat?

Rat is BD and cat is China.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

India wants to swallow all of South Asia. China is the only hope for the rest of the South Asian countries to safeguard their territorial integrity. China's BRI and CPEC will dash India's hope to gobble up her smaller neighbors.

Rest of South Asia is unhygienic. We shall not be able to digest it. We do not have any intension to make those radical people a part of our nation. They are liability. Let them be swallowed by China.

 

[Dogun18]

unhygienic

Not more unhygienic than a country that has cow poop wars.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Not more unhygienic than a country that has cow poop wars.

Word unhygienic was used as the post in whose response it was retweeted talked about eating south Asian countries. We have no interest in eating any south Asian nation except Nepal and Bhutan if they are willing to join Indian Union willingly. Nation does not come with only land. It comes with its people. We do not want those liability. They are destined to break and regress. It will happen with them. Why should we accept that liability. Had we had any intension, we would have done it in 1971. They have no future, yet they believe that they are going to do well. Let them enjoy the status what they have achieved with their hard work in 8 and 5 decades respectively.

 

[Saif]

Rat is BD and cat is China.

Our national animal is Royal Bengal Tiger not Rat. And the national animal of China is Dragon not Cat.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Our national animal is Royal Bengal Tiger not Rat. And the national animal of China is Dragon not Cat.

That is true but it was a phrase.

 

[Saif]

India's $23 billion plan to rival China factories to lapse after it disappoints

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has decided to let lapse a $23 billion program to incentivize domestic manufacturing, just four years after it launched the effort to woo firms away from China, according to four government officials. The scheme will not be expanded beyond the 14 pi

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

India's $23 billion plan to rival China factories to lapse after it disappoints
REUTERS
Published :
Mar 21, 2025 16:44
Updated :
Mar 21, 2025 16:44

A worker cuts a metal plate inside an industrial tank manufacturing factory on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, January 31, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Amit Dave/Files

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has decided to let lapse a $23 billion program to incentivize domestic manufacturing, just four years after it launched the effort to woo firms away from China, according to four government officials.

The scheme will not be expanded beyond the 14 pilot sectors and production deadlines will not be extended despite requests from some participating firms, two of the officials said.

Some 750 companies, including Apple supplier Foxconn and Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, signed up to the Production-Linked Initiative scheme, public records show.

Firms were promised cash payouts if they met individual production targets and deadlines. The hope was to raise the share of manufacturing in the economy to 25 per cent by 2025.

Instead, many firms that participated in the program failed to kickstart production, while others that met manufacturing targets found India slow to pay out subsidies, according to government documents and correspondence seen by Reuters.

As of October 2024, participating firms had produced $151.93 billion worth of goods under the program, or 37 per cent of the target that Delhi had set, according to an undated analysis of the program compiled by the commerce ministry. India had issued just $1.73 billion in incentives - or under 8 per cent of the allocated funds, the document said.

News of the government's decision to not extend the plan and specifics about the lag in payouts are being reported by Reuters for the first time.

Modi's office and the commerce ministry, which oversees the program, did not respond to requests for comment. Since the plan's introduction, manufacturing's share of the economy has decreased from 15.4 per cent to 14.3 per cent.

Foxconn, which now employs thousands of contract workers in India, and Reliance didn't return requests for comment.

Two of the government officials told Reuters the end of the program did not mean Delhi had abandoned its manufacturing ambitions and that alternatives were being planned.

The government last year defended the program's impact, particularly in pharmaceuticals and mobile-phone manufacturing, which have seen explosive growth. Some 94 per cent of the nearly $620 million in incentives disbursed between April and October 2024 were directed to those two sectors.

In some instances, some food-sector companies that applied for subsidies weren't issued them due to factors such as "non compliance of investment thresholds" and companies "not achieving stipulated minimum growth," according to the analysis. The document did not provide specifics, though it found production in the sector had exceeded targets. Reuters could not determine which companies the analysis referred to.

But Delhi had previously acknowledged problems and agreed to extend some deadlines and increase payment frequency after complaints from PLI participants. One of the Indian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters, said that excessive red tape and bureaucratic caution continued to stymie the scheme's effectiveness.

As an alternative, India is considering supporting certain sectors by partially reimbursing investments made to set up plants, which would allow firms to recover costs faster than having to wait for production and sale, another official said.

Trade expert Biswajit Dhar at the Delhi-based Council for Social Development think-tank, who has said Modi's government needs to do more to attract foreign investment, said the country might have missed its moment.

The incentives program was "possibly the last chance we had to revive our manufacturing sector," he said. "If this kind of mega-scheme fails, do you have any expectation that anything is going to succeed?"

The stalling of manufacturing comes as India tries to circumvent the trade war unleashed by US President Donald Trump, who has criticised Delhi's protectionist policies.

Trump's threat of reciprocal tariffs on countries like India that have a trade surplus with the US means the export sector is increasingly challenged, said Dhar. "There was some amount of tariff protection ... and all that is going to be slashed."

HITS AND MISSES

The program was introduced at an opportune time for India: China, which for decades had been the world's factory floor, was struggling to maintain production amid Beijing's zero-COVID policy.

The US was also seeking to reduce its economic reliance on an increasingly assertive Beijing, prompting many multinationals to pursue a "China plus one" policy of diversifying production lines.

With its large youthful population, lower costs and a government regarded as relatively friendly to the West, India seemed set to benefit.

India has become a global leader in pharmaceutical and mobile-phone production in recent years.

The country produced $49 billion worth of mobiles in the 2023-24 fiscal year, up 63 per cent from 2020-21, government data show. Industry leaders like Apple now manufacture their newest and most sophisticated cellphones in India, after having started with low-cost models.

Similarly, pharmaceutical exports nearly doubled to $27.85 billion in 2023-24 from a decade ago.

But the success was not repeated in the other sectors, which include steel, textiles and solar panel manufacturing. India faces fierce competition from cheaper rivals like China in many of those fields.

In the solar industry, for instance, eight of the 12 companies that signed up to PLI are unlikely to meet their targets, according to a December 2024 analysis of the sector prepared by the renewable energy ministry and seen by Reuters. The eight firms included units of Reliance, Adani Group and the Indian conglomerate JSW.

The analysis found that the Reliance entity would only meet 50 per cent of the production target it had been set for the end of the 2027 fiscal year, when the solar PLI scheme will expire. It also said that the Adani business had not ordered equipment it needed to manufacture the solar panels and that JSW had not "done anything yet."

JSW declined to comment, while Adani did not respond to questions.

The commerce ministry said in a January letter to the renewables ministry seen by Reuters that it would not agree to its counterpart's request to extend the scheme beyond 2027 as doing so "will result in unfair benefit for non-performers."

The renewables ministry said in response to Reuters' questions that it was committed to "fairness and accountability," as well as "ensuring that only those who meet their targets are rewarded."

In the steel sector, investment and production also lag targets. Fourteen of the 58 projects approved for PLIs have been withdrawn or removed due to lack of progress, according to the undated program-wide analysis.

($1 = 86.4425 Indian rupees)​