Skip to main content

India's annual export losses may reach $50 bln if economy not opened up to world trade: US govt policy adviser

By Rajiv Shah
A senior policy expert attached with US government has sharply criticized the Government of India for not doing enough in opening up its economy to the world. Pointing out that “India’s international competitiveness is lagging badly”, the expert says, “The shares of both manufactured and services exports in the economy have stagnated for over three years”, and “the responsiveness of Indian imports to global growth has declined sharply.”
The expert, C Fred Bergsten, says, India’s :merchandise trade deficit has hit record highs in the last two years”, and the country’s “competitiveness problem is compounded by its absence from the world’s new megaregional trade agreements, especially the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) but also the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)”.
In his paper titled “India’s Rise: A Strategy for Trade-led Growth”, Bergsten says, what is particularly regrettable is that the Narendra Modi government has failed to take advantage of the offer of President Barack Obama in January 2015 during his visit to New Delhi, asking India to join the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
Bergsten is a member of the US President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, and chair, Private Sector Advisory Group to the US-India Trade Policy since 2007. He wrote the paper for the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, a private nonpartisan, nonprofit institution. It was released on the eve of Modi’s visit to the US.
Refusal to be part of international trade agreements would mean, says the expert, India’s annual export losses would "approach $50 billion", even as pointing to the “danger” of India being “left behind by the world trading system”.
Bergsten says, Modi may have proposed “a series of sweeping reforms”, though adding, his “ambitious” programmes would not be enough, as India still needs to “greatly expand its engagement in global markets to both meet its economic objectives and establish its leadership role in the world economy.”
Batting for the need to “sharply increase its exports of both manufactured goods and services to achieve its target growth rate (10 percent per annum)”, the expert says, “No country, including India during its growth spurt of the past decade, has achieved such expansion without deepening its interdependence with the world economy.”
He predicts, “India could experience huge export gains of more than $500 billion per year (a 60 percent increase, more than any other country) from joining an expanded TPP or participating in a comprehensive Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), now being considered by APEC. Indian national income would expand by a whopping 4 percent (over $200 billion) as a result.”
Regretting that Indian trade policy has failed to pursue existing “opportunities”, Bergsten underlines, “The country has been unwilling to put its own sensitive sectors on the table and has thus been unable to persuade other countries to open markets that would be meaningful to India.”
The expert believes, India has “negotiated low-quality agreements and currently seems poised for more of the same, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with a number of Asian countries.”
By contrast, the expert says, China has “used liberalization of its trade and investment policies, required by its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), to broaden and deepen the internal economic reforms that sustained its dramatic double-digit growth.”
Obama, says the expert, had told Modi during his visit to Delhi in January 2015 that he was “a willingness to consider India’s interest in joining APEC”. Wondering why India has so far not responded, he insists India must “immediately accept Obama’s offer and seek membership in APEC.”

Comments

TRENDING

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857  By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi*  This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk  The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman*  Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...