{"id":30597,"date":"2018-10-26T16:52:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T11:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=30597"},"modified":"2018-10-26T16:52:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T11:22:47","slug":"far-short-of-the-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/far-short-of-the-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Far short of the potential"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/far-short-of-the-potential\/article23248397.ece\"><strong>Far short of the potential<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Indo-Japan ties:<\/strong>The India-Japan economic relationship remains underwhelming in relation to strategic ties<\/p>\n<p><strong>The bright side<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Japan currently ranks as the third largest investor in India<\/li>\n<li>Japanese investment in India totalled $4.7 billion in 2016-17, up from $2.6 billion the previous year<\/li>\n<li>Japanese investment in India\u2019s first bullet train<\/li>\n<li>Regular high-profile bilateral visits between both sides<\/li>\n<li>Have a common strategic objective in countering Chinese hegemony in Asia<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenges on the economic front<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>According to Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) data, China received about five times more Japanese investment between 1996-2015 ($116 billion) than India did ($24 billion).<\/li>\n<li>Japan-India two-way trade \u2014 $13.48 billion in 2016-17 \u2014 is also a fraction of the $350 billion China-Japan trade relationship or even India-China trade ($84.44 billion in 2017<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Reasons: \u00a0<\/strong>It takes Japanese companies in India longer than their Korean or Chinese counterparts to learn how best to localise their products for the Indian market<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Example:<\/u><\/strong>Air conditioners<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Japanese tend to think that the most important element is the quality of the air conditioner so that it is able to last without the need for repairs.<\/li>\n<li>But in India it is cheap to have an air conditioner repaired and technicians are abundant<\/li>\n<li>The consumer is therefore more focussed on cost than durability<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Solution: <\/strong>Switching from importing expensive parts from Japan to sourcing them locally as done by Japanese manufacturer, Daikin<\/p>\n<p><strong>The greatest challenge: Cultural<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An outdated and negative image of India.<\/li>\n<li>The larger corporations may realise India\u2019s potential, but small and medium enterprises are the worst culprits of this attitude.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Punctuality<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In Japan, being on time is akin to religion, whereas in India, time is fungible (replaceable by another identical item)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Inflexible Japanese corporations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, Japanese corporations are strongly risk averse which makes it difficult for them to cope in the freewheeling, jugaad-proud environment of India, where flexibility and impromptu decision making are necessary skills in the business arsenal<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ray of optimism<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Roping in more Indian companies to develop and design Japanese products for the South Asian market<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It could be one major way forward in deepening the bilateral engagement<\/p>\n<p><u>Example:<\/u> Collaboration between Japan\u2019s Panasonic and India\u2019s Tata Elxsi to develop smart solutions and products for Panasonic customers in India and the neighbouring region.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>India as a Manufacturing base for markets in Africa<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Existing examples include Hitachi Construction Machinery\u2019s joint venture with Tata whose Kharagpur plant is a hub for exports to developing countries, as well as auto major Nissan, which exports the India-made Datsun \u2018GO+\u2019 to South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Far short of the potential Context Indo-Japan ties:The India-Japan economic relationship remains underwhelming in relation to strategic ties The bright side Japan currently ranks as the third largest investor in India Japanese investment in India totalled $4.7 billion in 2016-17, up from $2.6 billion the previous year Japanese investment in India\u2019s first bullet train Regular&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/far-short-of-the-potential\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Far short of the potential<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704821245},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}