India has successfully dealt with a 'bogey' that China was poised to invade the country economically by swamping the Indian market with cheap goods, Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday.
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"As far as India is concerned, the bogey over Chinese threat is over," Jaitley told PTI in Beijing.
"By improving our efficiency, we have conclusively ended the threat perception of the Chinese invading our economic market," he said, while noting that this year Indian exports to China had outpaced the Communist giant's exports to India.
During the first six months of 2003, Indian exports to China rose by 101 per cent to $1.97 billion while China's exports to India rose 35 per cent to touch $1.48 billion, resulting in a trade balance of $501 million in India's favour.
Jaitley recalled that people in India complained of threat of Chinese goods swamping the market.
"But a free market is the best stabiliser. Poor quality goods were driven out of the market, not by the government, but by the market itself," he said on the sidelines of the biggest-ever 'Made in India' industrial exposition mounted by the Indian industries, which are seeking a share in China's booming market.
"The threat argument is always used by inefficient and high-cost economies as against the efficient ones. Today, the name of the game is competition. You have to compete and improve. You have to make your product cost and quality competitive. It is only then that you will sell."
"So there is no advantage in cursing the threat and being inefficient yourself. You have to overtake the others in competition. Competition is an area where you will gain in some areas and loose in some. It is here you have to discover the areas of your core competencies," Jaitley said.
"The world will buy where the goods are cheapest, the world will buy where the services are the cheapest," he said while noting that multinational companies are increasingly outsourcing from India and people from the region are coming to the country for health care.
"Why are they coming to India? It is simply because we supply cheaper but world quality services," he said, adding that the health care sector is emerging as a new growth point in India.
"We are in a position to give quality health care services at a fraction of the world cost," he said, while lauding the Confederation of Indian Industries for promoting this sun rise sector in China.
For the first time, the CII had organised a seminar in Shanghai on India's prowess in the health care sector.
Jaitley also expressed satisfaction over the decision of many Fortune-500 companies who are shifting their R&D centres to India.
This, he said is happening because in India, scientific manpower of global quality is available at the cheapest price.
"These are all our success stories," the minister said, noting that there are areas where the country was lagging behind and where Indian products are not cost effective.
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