Stephen S Roach on India's Economy

Stephen S Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, returning from his fourth trip to India in three years:

“I am returning from India with great enthusiasm. India has made solid progress on two counts — savings and FDI — and infrastructure development seems set to follow. These are breakthroughs that can unshackle India’s greatest strengths — a high-quality stock of human capital and the magic of its entrepreneurial spirit." “What blew me away were the corporate and entrepreneurial stories. For all the buzz over China, one of the great paradoxes of the world’s greatest development story is that it only has a handful of truly world-class companies. By contrast, India has a much deeper and broader stable of very powerful businesses. Moreover, it’s not just IT services - it’s also telecom, pharmaceuticals, energy, steel, and auto components.” “I would compare India’s corporate leaders favourably with their counterparts in any other country in the world. Not only is this a huge advantage when compared with China, but it is likely to be a major plus for India as it fights for market share in the global competitive sweepstakes in the years ahead,” Roach said. [B-S]