The Economic Survey 202324 suggests India should focus on attracting FDI from China to benefit from the global 'China Plus One' strategy, rather than integrating into China's supply chain.  The Su...

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- The Economic Survey 2023-24 suggests India should focus on attracting FDI from China to benefit from the global 'China Plus One' strategy, rather than integrating into China's supply chain.
- The Survey highlights India's growing electronic exports, particularly in mobile phones, as a key area of growth.
- With multinational companies shifting away from China, India has a unique opportunity to attract Chinese investments and boost its manufacturing exports.
- The government's PLI scheme, offering tax breaks and subsidies, is crucial in attracting companies to set up operations in India, especially in the electronics sector.
- Major tech companies like Apple and Google are already increasing their production in India, signaling a positive trend for the country's manufacturing landscape. 

 Source: Inc42

Economic Survey Advocates for Increased FDI from China to Boost India's Exports

Journalist

Economic Survey Advocates for Increased FDI from China to Boost India's Exports- Grapevine

Why is India so dependant on chinese goods, what are some goods that we import the most🤔
Is there anyone here building in india in substitute of chinese imported goods

Chinese Export Market🤯

Product Manager

- India's imports from China increased by 13.05% to $10.28 billion in July, while exports to China fell by 9.44% to $1.05 billion, according to commerce ministry data.
- During April-July 2024-25, India's exports to China dipped by 4.54% to $4.8 billion, and imports grew by 9.66% to $35.85 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $31.31 billion.
- Exports to countries like the UK, Germany, and South Africa contracted in July, but saw growth in the US, UAE, and the Netherlands.
- India's exports to the US rose by 3.15% to $6.55 billion in July, while imports increased by 1.43% to $3.71 billion, leading to a trade surplus of $12.2 billion during April-July 2024-25.
- Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal stated that the increase in imports from China is not a concern as it aligns with India's growing consumption and economic growth. 

 Source: [Economic Times](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/indias-imports-from-china-up-13-exports-dip-9-44-in-july/articleshow/112528612.cms)

India's Trade Dynamics with China: Imports Surge, Exports Decline

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Do write a sentence about why & what's the unique insight.

One sector where you are bullish

Office Assistant

- At a testing facility in Tamil Nadu, Mahindra Group's new vehicles highlight India's growing automotive sector and Modi's 'Self-reliant India' campaign.
- Despite restrictions on Chinese investment, India remains heavily dependent on Chinese imports, including battery cells for Mahindra's EVs.
- Critics argue that India's tough stance on China could hinder its manufacturing ambitions, with delays in visas for Chinese technicians affecting companies like Apple.
- The Modi government is divided on whether to ease restrictions, with some officials pushing for more flexibility to attract foreign investment.
- Major Indian companies, like Tata Power, are working to reduce reliance on Chinese imports, aiming for self-sufficiency in critical sectors like solar energy. 

 Source: [Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/5a2b4491-5687-4b11-872d-a4f51121bbb2)

Can India’s Economy Thrive Without China’s Help?

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- Apple plans to open four new retail stores in Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi-NCR, and Mumbai, India. 
- The company has also started domestic production of its entire iPhone 16 lineup, including Pro models. 
- This move is part of Apple's strategy to diversify production away from China and tap into India's growing smartphone market. 
- However, iPhone production in India is progressing slower than expected, with current output estimated at 10-15% of total production. 
- Despite this, Apple's revenue in India jumped 42% year-on-year in 2023 to $8.7 billion, making it iPhone’s fifth largest smartphone market.

Source: [Techcrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/03/apple-plans-four-new-retail-stores-in-india/)

Apple Expands Retail Presence and Production in India

I geniually want to understand why we are behind in manufacturing ? Although I'm from commerce background but I would love to know how does one start manufacturing business in India ?

What type of engineers you need ? Honestly I don't have any clue but if any has some information pls discuss here.

Why is Indian manufacturing so behind compared to China ?

https://inc42.com/buzz/apple-to-employ-5-lakh-people-in-3-years-in-india/

Huge! Great for Indian manufacturing.

I was casually scrolling across Amazon looking for a smartwatch for a family member,  when I came across this tag called Country of Origin on the product description details section. To my surprise most of the so-called Indian brands like Noise and Boat have Country of Origin specified as surprise surprise *China*.

I felt kinda disgusting tbh. Then I scrolled over the list of products that I have purchased over Amazon ranging from mouse pads to Milton water bottles and almost all of them had this country of origin from China, except for the Bhagwat Purana copy(Thank God).

I think we Indians are by sheer ignorance depleting India's forex reserves and demoting efforts by our Entrepreneur to manufacture in India. We may end up getting cheap products but it costs us loss in GDP and job opportunities in India. I guess we could take a lesson out of the Japanese book where Japanese people don't buy non-Japanese products. It's a conscious decision.

Do Indians care about the Country of Origin tag while purchasing products?

Software Engineer

2030

Systems analyst

What do you all think about the laptop import ban? Good or bad?

Laptop ban??

Copywriter

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Lately, I have been thinking very deeply about my college days when the Flipkart story had inspired the entire lot of my batch at IIT-D. We were starry eyed college kids who wanted to do something innovative in India and break away from the "three" most popular moves after IIT:

1. UPSC
2. MBA
3. MS/PhD abroad

I proceeded to then work in various Indian startups and noticed an alarming thing. I began to realise a pattern across all my stints:

The initial founding team does exceptional work innovating, they excel at what Thiel calls "Zero to One", the act of creation. I will concede that although most founders fail to innovate by often copying what worked in the west but the initial founding team usually excels in execution. It allows for initial traction as it breathes a fresh breath in the\ space that they are operating in.

Almost always, when Product Market Fit is "achieved"(whatever that means), the founders begin to deploy insane amounts of funds into growth. 

By definition, Growth is not a bad thing. But, I have been noticing that across all startups I have worked at( all raised funds from the largest global funds) that it comes at the expense of product building. And during this era of hypergrowth, the product starts to stagnate while focus becomes marketing and sales. 

I often felt that this was temporary. That once we reach enough scale, we would start to innovate again. 
But time and time again, the ability to innovate atrophies over time.
Rather than building something that has enduring value by executing faster than anyone, the focus becomes achieving growth at all costs. 

This ultimately leads to two outcomes:
1. The startup cannot sustain this growth and retention begins to look dire. The churn becomes unbearable and the startup goes out of business.

2. The startup gets acquired by someone bigger, allowing founders and investors to believe that they created value where none existed in the first place.

I am completely dejected at this.

The Death of Indian Innovation: Why Indian Start Ups are failing to Innovate?

Growth Manager

VC funding based on revenue multiples and profit (😂😂😂) multiples is soon going to be obsolete. 

Common sense says company's valuation should be summation of yearly profits it can generate till the company exists... 

So if reliance has profit of 8 billion $ , market estimates that it's valuation should be around 25x multiple of its profit that is to say that if reliance keeps on generating same amount of profit for year on year, it will not exist after 25 years.

Now tell me, what shelf live does these VC funded startup have?

I honestly don't see all these tom dick and Harry mobile based and web based startups existing by end of this decade thanks to AI revolution.

People are still oblivion to what AI will do to white collar jobs 



Just out of curiosity, is there any single VC funded Indian startup in last 10-15 years which is immensely profitable ? 

Or for that matter any global giants like Amazon, Uber, Airbnb etc. which has turned profitable in Indian territory?

Future of VC funded mobile and web based startups

- India is rapidly catching up to China in the MSCI emerging markets index, raising questions for global investors about where to allocate their capital.
- Indian stocks have surged, now making up nearly 20% of the index, while China's share has dropped significantly since 2020.
- An upcoming MSCI review could see India's weighting surpass 20%, putting it just behind China and ahead of Taiwan.
- Investors face a dilemma: invest in India's expensive but high-performing market or China's cheaper stocks amid an economic slowdown.
- Domestic investment in Indian equities has been strong, countering foreign outflows and driving up valuations, despite concerns about sustainability. 

 Source: FT

India Closes in on China as Largest Emerging Market

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Absolutely sad to see the state of the startups, most of them.
I am a founder myself, and this is a post with equal disappointment with myself as much as it is for anyone else who relates.
Look at all these companies that have raised shit tons of capital, and now make a fraction of money that has been invested in them.
The raised money is spent on outsized, non business sense making acquisition costs, only to keep repeating it till the tap runs dry.
Then when all stakeholders get bored, the service quality plummets, the employees are fired and whole sectors are admonished as being bad.

But, my question is, which sector where large sums of money was invested in early days have come out with flying colours. Fucking nothing !
Edtech, proptech, agritech, ecommerce etc. etc. etc. kuch bhi nahi. 

Is there any sector where a startup which has raised in the 100s of millions in the first 5 years have actually built a sustainable business at any scale ?
Then scaling down, isse acha, scale slowly.
The worst part of this whole drama, is pushing the innovation wheel backward and destroying customer sentiment.

Isse acha, raise less money inititally, build slowly, and only scale when the market is ready. Artifical growth makes no sense, unless you have a treasure chest that shall never run out.
Even in that case, spend the money on assets and not on random acquisition costs, direct or indirect.

As founders, let's do better, nahi ?

Rant or is it ?

Founder

..unless either of the two mess up insanely bad

We'll probably get to the #3 spot if things go well. But it seems impossible that we'll ever go beyond that.

Internal reasons that are very hard to fix:-

(1) Our population TFR fell below standard replacement rate in 2023. This means we will not be able to follow the same economic growth trajectory required to reach developed status before population stagnation or declination. This is not a death knell but definitely very VERY bad news.

(2) Our blue-collar workforce skill levels are not only subpar but are slowly falling behind the world standards every year. Much of our youth aim to join government orgs like the Army or the Railways which train for the job later, not before. Despite a national shortage of skilled plumbers, electricians etc, our vocational training orgs have been unsuccessful in attracting people towards these careers as well as churning out skilled workers.

(3) Our bureaucratic environment is extremely slow with pathetic turnaround times on initiatives. This is not government specific and has always been the case so it seems like this will always be. This is not even a problem unique to India as many other countries have been facing this too but it is still a factor that negatively impacts our growth massively.

I wish it was just internal reasons but a large part of it also comes down to both China and US being aggressively great at ensuring their successes:-

(1) Chinese manufacturing seems nearly impossible to overcome - not just for India but also for the US. Yes, we might win over some industries and companies like the US, Vietnam, Thailand etc. have been doing but the amount of autocratic control in China allows them to crush competition easily. Case in point - the recent tussle between India and China on solar manufacturing which China won by autocratically lowering their prices.

(2) If de-dollarisation succeeds, it will benefit China the most because (contd. in comments)

Controversial: India will never overtake China or US

Software Developer

- India is emerging as the next big growth market for consumer goods giants like PepsiCo and Unilever, filling the gap left by China's uneven recovery.
- Companies are targeting India's diverse population and untapped rural market with new flavors and size variants, driven by the country's fast-paced economic growth.
- Major consumer goods firms expect higher government spending, a better monsoon season, and a resurgence in private consumption to boost consumer spending in the coming quarters.
- The combined market share of top multinational companies in India is projected to rise, while their market share in China is expected to decline.
- Consumer goods companies are heavily investing in India with new product launches and packaging upgrades, contrasting with muted growth in China. 

 Source: [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/pepsico-pg-india-becomes-next-big-growth-bet-china-lags-2024-08-09/)

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