India: Growing by leaps and bounds

When we were young, I remember the man whom we used to call "bumbay" wearing a turban, riding a motorcycle and going around the neighborhood selling umbrellas. In fact, during those days, a lot of mothers used to scare erring children by telling them, "Ibibigay kita sa bumbay!" Today, India has transformed itself into one of the most dynamic economies in the Asian region, neck to neck with China as the world’s fastest growing economy. India is becoming a favorite hub for software production and business process outsourcing while China is the preferred destination for global manufacturing.

With China in the east and India in the south, these two countries have the potential to outpace the rest of Asia, if not the world. Together, the two countries could "reshape the world order," as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said during his historic visit to China last year. We seem to be concentrating a lot on our bilateral trade with the US and China, but we should now start looking at India.

The UN says India will become the world’s most populous nation by 2050 with 1.63 billion people, overtaking China with its projected population of 1.44 billion. That’s probably why the Ayala Group is now looking at the possibility of putting up a mall in that country. There is also a great demand in India for copper, zinc and steel, which the Philippines could readily supply because we have the 5th largest copper reserves in the world. India is a big market and we must see this big potential for Philippine products and services.

The visit of Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam emphasizes the importance of India today and how we must open our eyes and look to the South for new business opportunities. Unfortunately, I missed the State Dinner last night as I had to leave for the States. Indian Ambassador Navrekha Sharma is a good friend of ours, and she sent me a book entitled "Wings of Fire," the autobiography of President Kalam which I have not had a chance to read yet. But Ambassador Sharma is perhaps one of the most visible and hardworking Indian ambassadors we have had for a long time. She is a dynamic and tireless diplomat meeting as many people as she can, telling them about her country’s economic potential and the fascinating places in India. It has a rich cultural heritage, and some scholars believe that India may in fact be the cradle of civilization. The last time I was in India was in New Delhi four years ago and I certainly would like to find time to go back there and see the fascinating diversity that this country has to offer. I am told that India has reinvented itself into one of the most vibrant economies, with mega cities showcasing the country’s rising industrialization.

India’s economy has been growing at an average of 7 to 8 percent, and the Indian government is determined to increase this by as much as 10 percent for the next couple of years. Economic analysts are even predicting that India’s growth will be more impressive than China’s two decades from now because of the former’s growing pool of English-speaking professionals and western-style business practices that enable Indian companies to become globally competitive. Just take a look at Infosys Technologies, now a leading IT consulting firm that has made a name for software development and outsourcing services.

While India embarked on free market reforms only in the ’90s, it has had a big private sector and it was not closed to the world as China was. Indian authorities are also set on developing the rural areas, where approximately 75 percent of its one billion population is located. Many expatriate IT professionals have also returned to their homeland to work in thriving IT companies. There is an emerging new middle class in India, said to be 300-million strong, who are eager to spend their newfound wealth and rising disposable income in the global market. India’s new middle class are mostly professionals with backgrounds in information technology and equipped with managerial skills. They comprise the new breed of millionaires who, some economists say, could eventually help lift the rest of the Indian population out of poverty.

As a matter of fact, there is a lot more to India than most Filipinos perceive as just the ubiquitous "umbrella man" and the usual "5/6" bumbay who lends out five pesos and gets six pesos as payment, or a 20 percent interest. Believe it or not, 5/6 has helped the poor people mostly in the provinces who set up small businesses like sari-sari stores, marketplace stalls, or even just to make ends meet. There is no collateral for the amount of money the Indians lend out and the transaction is done purely by "word of honor." And their batting average of being paid back is 99.9 percent.

The downside though to the 5/6 is that the DFA has issued a circular concerning all Indian nationals applying for visas to the Philippines. They want to make requirements a little more stringent for those coming in as tourists because they could be potential 5/6 operators. This is a major problem that has caused the presence of too many 5/6 operators in the country. And of course there’s also the potential for corruption on the side of the Philippine Embassy in India. There’s a story going around that a Philippine consul in India made a fortune collecting as much as a thousand dollars per visa. But whatever it is, this visit of the Indian president could possibly open our eyes that there is a lot more to India than just the 5/6 or the "umbrella man." We must revisit the issue of visas. It’s really a matter of setting the proper guidelines.

The world is indeed a global village and the market is getting bigger especially with countries like India. We should not just look at the United States and China for trade. There is India with a dynamic economy - growing by leaps and bounds.

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