trident2010
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India, last frontier for the West
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in India on December 4 with a briefcase packed with multi-billion dollar defence and business contracts and accompanied by a powerful delegation of CEOs and military advisors. Lining up right behind him are Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Bruised by relentless political pressure at home, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will welcome the shift in focus to India`s role in international affairs.
Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom President Sarkozy has frequently been compared, laid the foundations of modern France— its code civil or Napoleonic code, légion d`honneur and grandes écoles. He sent proconsuls to India to extract trade concessions and an army to America to win Louisiana from Spain. President Sarkozy`s ambitions in India at this point are more modest. While he shares much with Napoleon —tempestuous wives (Empress Joséphine and Carla Bruni), non-French origins (Corsican and Hungarian respectively) and a short temper —President Sarkozy runs a post-imperial, tired and ageing France.
Why does India draw him? There are 1.17 billion answers: each Indian is an under-served customer. India is the last frontier — the only large country in the world with underdeveloped infrastructure and a huge, young consumer market that foreign firms will do almost anything to penetrate.
With a GDP of $3.75 trillion (by purchasing power parity), India is already the world`s fourth largest economy after the United States, China and Japan. At an average annual growth rate of 9%, Indian GDP is expanding by around $350 billion every year —equal to Belgium`s entire GDP. By 2020, assuming the current annual growth rate, Indian GDP at $8 trillion will be the world`s third largest —and adding on $800 billion annually, equal to the entire economy of Australia.
Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev know this. French and Russian think-tanks have given both leaders thick dossiers on the opportunity that is India, circa 2010. Corruption? It`s sometimes easier to deal with systemic bribing. Maoism and terrorism? Russia has Chechnya and France its riotous unions. Power cuts? A chance to sell nuclear energy technology. Terrible infrastructure? The perfect opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the India story. Poverty? The 800 million Indians living on Rs 40 a day will one day be 800 million middle-class consumers buying French and Russian products.
The infirmities Indians rightly fret about are opportunities for foreign firms. In chaos there lies gold —as Western frontiersmen discovered during the California gold rush of 1848 and those that followed in Australia in 1851 and South Africa in 1886. Many a Rothschild and de Beers fortune was built there.
India is different, of course. It has a population of 1.17 billion, parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, a strong culture of entrepreneurship, technology-driven industry and a young, consuming middle class. Most of Europe is ageing, its population shrinking. Russia`s population, for example, is projected to fall from 140 million to 129 million by 2040. Italy, Germany and Scandinavia will see similarly precipitous declines in population. To compound the problem, economic growth rates across Europe are likely to stagnate at an average of 1.5% a year. As debt-laden Europe ages and economic growth slows, Europeans will live longer, setting off a pension time bomb. France has passed legislation— against fierce union opposition, leading to street riots —to raise the official retirement age from 60 to 62. Britain has announced an even steeper increase —to 66 —by 2016 along with savage cuts in government expenditure, totalling $130 billion over four years and a potential loss of 490,000 public sector jobs.
The US is struggling with a faltering economic recovery that will probably cost President Barack Obama his job in November 2012. For the US and Europe, chaotic but growing India is an economic lifeline. When the American or French CEO of an infrastructure company flies into Mumbai, the slums that ring the airport are not an eyesore. To him they represent an opportunity for new multi-billion dollar infrastructure —housing, roads, bridges, power plants.
India, as France and Russia`s high-tech military establishments know, is now among the world`s biggest defence buyers with a $50 billion shopping budget for 2010-12. Indian companies are Britain`s second largest investors. Bilateral trade with France —$3.53 billion in the first six months of 2010 —is growing at 20% annually. Though visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will be closely questioned in the next fortnight on Pakistan-0ccupied Kashmir and Tibet, Beijing is keener to emphasize business ties, including Shanghai Electric`s agreement to sell Reliance Power 36 coal-fired plants for $8.29 billion. A study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) estimates that India will soak up investment of $2.70 trillion over the next five years, including $1 trillion in infrastructure.
As the world comes calling, it would be easy for Indians to forget how urgently we need to fix our governance. Corruption, nepotism and dynasty gnaw at our ability to play a wider global role. Adulation from recession-struck Europeans, like steroids, can distort reality. It may roll out the red carpet for President Sarkozy and first lady Carla Bruni, but Congress, which was voted out of office in 1977, 1989 and 1996, knows this better than anyone else.
India, last frontier for the West - The Times of India
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in India on December 4 with a briefcase packed with multi-billion dollar defence and business contracts and accompanied by a powerful delegation of CEOs and military advisors. Lining up right behind him are Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Bruised by relentless political pressure at home, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will welcome the shift in focus to India`s role in international affairs.
Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom President Sarkozy has frequently been compared, laid the foundations of modern France— its code civil or Napoleonic code, légion d`honneur and grandes écoles. He sent proconsuls to India to extract trade concessions and an army to America to win Louisiana from Spain. President Sarkozy`s ambitions in India at this point are more modest. While he shares much with Napoleon —tempestuous wives (Empress Joséphine and Carla Bruni), non-French origins (Corsican and Hungarian respectively) and a short temper —President Sarkozy runs a post-imperial, tired and ageing France.
Why does India draw him? There are 1.17 billion answers: each Indian is an under-served customer. India is the last frontier — the only large country in the world with underdeveloped infrastructure and a huge, young consumer market that foreign firms will do almost anything to penetrate.
With a GDP of $3.75 trillion (by purchasing power parity), India is already the world`s fourth largest economy after the United States, China and Japan. At an average annual growth rate of 9%, Indian GDP is expanding by around $350 billion every year —equal to Belgium`s entire GDP. By 2020, assuming the current annual growth rate, Indian GDP at $8 trillion will be the world`s third largest —and adding on $800 billion annually, equal to the entire economy of Australia.
Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev know this. French and Russian think-tanks have given both leaders thick dossiers on the opportunity that is India, circa 2010. Corruption? It`s sometimes easier to deal with systemic bribing. Maoism and terrorism? Russia has Chechnya and France its riotous unions. Power cuts? A chance to sell nuclear energy technology. Terrible infrastructure? The perfect opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the India story. Poverty? The 800 million Indians living on Rs 40 a day will one day be 800 million middle-class consumers buying French and Russian products.
The infirmities Indians rightly fret about are opportunities for foreign firms. In chaos there lies gold —as Western frontiersmen discovered during the California gold rush of 1848 and those that followed in Australia in 1851 and South Africa in 1886. Many a Rothschild and de Beers fortune was built there.
India is different, of course. It has a population of 1.17 billion, parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, a strong culture of entrepreneurship, technology-driven industry and a young, consuming middle class. Most of Europe is ageing, its population shrinking. Russia`s population, for example, is projected to fall from 140 million to 129 million by 2040. Italy, Germany and Scandinavia will see similarly precipitous declines in population. To compound the problem, economic growth rates across Europe are likely to stagnate at an average of 1.5% a year. As debt-laden Europe ages and economic growth slows, Europeans will live longer, setting off a pension time bomb. France has passed legislation— against fierce union opposition, leading to street riots —to raise the official retirement age from 60 to 62. Britain has announced an even steeper increase —to 66 —by 2016 along with savage cuts in government expenditure, totalling $130 billion over four years and a potential loss of 490,000 public sector jobs.
The US is struggling with a faltering economic recovery that will probably cost President Barack Obama his job in November 2012. For the US and Europe, chaotic but growing India is an economic lifeline. When the American or French CEO of an infrastructure company flies into Mumbai, the slums that ring the airport are not an eyesore. To him they represent an opportunity for new multi-billion dollar infrastructure —housing, roads, bridges, power plants.
India, as France and Russia`s high-tech military establishments know, is now among the world`s biggest defence buyers with a $50 billion shopping budget for 2010-12. Indian companies are Britain`s second largest investors. Bilateral trade with France —$3.53 billion in the first six months of 2010 —is growing at 20% annually. Though visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will be closely questioned in the next fortnight on Pakistan-0ccupied Kashmir and Tibet, Beijing is keener to emphasize business ties, including Shanghai Electric`s agreement to sell Reliance Power 36 coal-fired plants for $8.29 billion. A study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) estimates that India will soak up investment of $2.70 trillion over the next five years, including $1 trillion in infrastructure.
As the world comes calling, it would be easy for Indians to forget how urgently we need to fix our governance. Corruption, nepotism and dynasty gnaw at our ability to play a wider global role. Adulation from recession-struck Europeans, like steroids, can distort reality. It may roll out the red carpet for President Sarkozy and first lady Carla Bruni, but Congress, which was voted out of office in 1977, 1989 and 1996, knows this better than anyone else.
India, last frontier for the West - The Times of India
