Sounds familiar ? Ought to be!
As a mother of 2yr old twins, am compelled by my own conscience to buy new toys every other month.So whats there in it ? Every parent of this new age does it.Its not about buying toys that concerns me,but the origin of it. I see that almost 95% of the toys, carry a "Made In China" tag. Be it a small car,soft toy or my computer mouse/keyboard, every 2nd item in my house is China made.Gifts from my relatives abroad, is mostly China/Taiwan/Japan made. Ain't it strange?
This made me do some research work on Indian -Chinese Import-Exports.Google is our handy manny :-) (Handy Manny is a cartoon on Disney Channel). Google search on "Made in China" showed me so many websites with an entire range of their products. You could set up a new home, a toy store, electronic goodies and what not.I was even tempted to start a small business.On the reverse, "Made In India" search fetched me the famous pop song by Alisha Chinai. It was surprising and shocking. My Indian pride in hanging somewhere.This made me dig deeper. I came across a report from Mckinsey. Its an interesting study comparing the manufacturing exports of Japan/Thailand/Taiwan/India.
All of us aware that China is the world leader in export of labour-intensive industries(toys,apparel and footwear) and skill intensive industries(electronics and computer h/w).I would like to highlight the four points which makes China a step ahead from India.
- Stimulate domestic demand by reducing indirect taxes and import duties - China’s success in manufacturing is built on a strong domestic market,achieved through the systematic lowering of indirect taxes from 32 to 15 percent of retail price in 1994.
- De-bottleneck ports and accelerate power reforms:China's customs clearance time is one or two days as against India's one or two weeks.
- Encourage the development of several manufacturing clusters:Clusters in the form of special economic zones (SEZs) with special economic systems and policies are a key feature of China’s success in manufacturing.
- Accelerate labour reforms and facilitate skill development:China is much more flexible in its labour laws than India.
China’s share of world trade is already at 20 per cent and China could capture 40-50 per cent of world trade in the future. India’s share of world manufacturing trade is a meager 0.8 per cent and hopes to increase it to 3.5 per cent by 2015.
There is no dearth of skills or resources in the Indian sub-continent.Am sure, India being a land of diverse cultures has enormous potential to upsurge in the manufacturing sector.India has to rise beyond the shackles the dirty politics, black money and goons as the black-cats of political leaders.
How should we to play our part ??
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