The Make in India Initiative: Has it Worked?

Yıl 2018, Cilt: 4 Sayı: 1, 55 - 88, 10.04.2018

LALİTA Som

Öz

Manufacturing sector has the potential to lift half a billion more of India’s

population out of poverty through income, export and employment

growth. For a broad economic growth, India must focus both on domestic

production to satisfy its large domestic demand and producing goods for

global markets. However, value added manufacturing, as a percentage of

GDP, has remained constant since 2000. Make in India was launched in

2014 to bring manufacturing back into the spotlight. The article looks at the

relevant progress made since the launch of Make in India. Since then, the

country has improved its rank consistently and has seen a significant jump

of 30 places in 2017 in the World Bank’s annual ease of doing business

survey and has eased statutory restrictions on foreign direct investment

across sectors. Consequently, FDI inflows saw a rise, but the investment

to GDP and the ratio of value added manufacturing to GDP have been

declining. The downward trend in many of the economic variables like

the current account has been unambiguous since the beginning of 2017.

There is a broad consensus amongst commentators about the downward

trend in the economic variables related to manufacturing and the structural

impediments facing manufacturing in India. To achieve the objectives

of Make in India, India must position itself to benefit from the structural

changes in technology and other emerging forces of globalization. For

this, India needs to address a number of structural bottlenecks, which have

intensified India’s loss of competitiveness in the manufacturing sector. The

article discusses the ten most important of these structural impediments and

evaluates the progress India has made since the launch of Make in India and

bolsters its arguments with international indices capturing trends in those

structural variables. However, it is too early to call Make in India a success

or a failure. Although India has introduced some significant policy changes,

the success of these policies is dependent on their effective implementation.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Make in India, manufacturing value added, factor markets, infrastructure, regulatory bottlenecks

Kaynakça

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