Singapore - India Business Dialogue 2014
I have tried to enumerate my notes from the summit.
http://www.smu.edu.sg/singapore-india-business-dialogue/2014/home
In 2013, India was Singapore’s 11th largest trading partner and 12th largest export destination, with total trade volume of $25.5 billion.
The emphasis was on general bon homie that prevailed post Narendra Modi winning the elections, and the euphoria has been quite evident in this part of wold too.
Need to develop India’s manufacturing sector was emphasise, citing the example of how India’s service sector boomed.
PSA contract to build container terminal , jawahar kal Nehru container terminal
There is need to have greater access to capital market.
There has been quite a few India companies getting listed in SGX - singapore stock exchange or having their offices in Singapore. Flipkart being one of them.
It was also hinted that once the creation of ASEAN economic entity get done in 2015, Indian companies will be able to access 3 trillion dollars worth of ASEAN market.
Mr. Prashant Saran from SEBI gave an elucidating speech of existing issues in India covering virtually every sector from education, environment, economy to healthcare.
India’s Inflation Rate
He went on presenting staggering stats about Indian Election2014
- Total no of voters = 814.5 million
- Transgender Voters = 28,314
- 1st time voters = 23 million
- Total estimated spending by India politicians = $4.9 billion
- CAP on election expenditure/candidate = $114,000
Education Sector
- Far from 100% literacy
- IIT /iim has plummeted standards
- Re-energise old universities
Literacy in India:
- Overall 74.04%
- Male 82.14%
- Female 65.46%
HEALTH DELIVERY SYS
* Inc man power
* Reduce out of pocket expenses of patients
* Sector is hugely labor intensive , creates jobs
Growing economy is always short of infrastructure , infra demands lower ROI than other investors
Prospects
- No immediate challenge politically
- Balance the fiscal deficit
- Currency : faith of foreign investors in India
- Convert it to economic bonanza : train these young folks
- Right to education act needs to implemented more strongly
- 1 among 14 developing economies in terms of sustainable development
- SEBI is working for more awareness for financial education
- Poor counties grow fast until they reach mid economic segment , India needs to understand this in a long run
One of the interesting question raised was on RBI stance on bitcoins. India is still on a defensive mode wrt bitcoins, compared to Singapore which has one of the major supporter of bitcoin in world
SOURCES :
1) Indian Economic Stats
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/gdp
2) Indian Election Stats
http://visual.ly/indian-elections-2014
3) India healthcare system stats
http://www.who.int/gho/countries/ind.pdf?ua=1
http://www.who.int/countries/ind/en/
http://www.tillvaxtanalys.se/download/18.5f097bc113eacc3d6d5140/1369033657507/direct_response_2013_04.pdf
4) Education Sector
RTE http://mhrd.gov.in/rte
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_statistics.html#117
5) Bitcoins
India http://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=30247
6) India’s fiscal deficit
The fiscal deficit touched 5.33 trillion rupees ($85.95 billion) during April-January, or 101.6 percent of the full year target, compared with 89.4 percent at the same point a year ago.
