Japan has been a strong contributor towards India’s economic development across a wide spectrum of agenda including some of India’s flagship initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India, Smart cities and Skill India, etc.
The last few years have seen an impressive expansion and deepening of India’s ‘Special Strategic and Global Partnership’ with Japan. Shared values of democracy, respect for the rule of law combined with convergence of political, economic and strategic interests have made this partnership even stronger.
India-Japan trade and investment relations have seen tremendous growth in recent years, thanks to the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Abe. Japan is one of the leading investors in Indian states across key sectors. The Indian states today are competing with each other to enhance investments in their respective states and therefore, there is a remarkable improvement in ease of doing business rankings of Indian States. In fact, India has recorded a jump of 14 positions against its rank of 77 in 2018 to be placed now at 63rd rank among 190 economies in the year 2019.
In these unprecedented times of ongoing global pandemic, which has led to major disruptions in global supply chains, India and Japan partnership can be harnessed to its highest potential. Some of the major economies including Japan have decided to de-risk their manufacturing investments and diversification of their supply chains due to major disruptions arising due to the pandemic. This provides India with an opportunity to become the next hub of global manufacturing supply chains. In this context, a lot of State governments and their investment/industrial promotion agencies have come up with various progressive policies for promoting industrial development and catalysing investments and are keen on introducing these to potential investors looking at India as a favourable destination for relocation/expansion.
The FICCI-SAM Report ‘India-Japan: Time to Seize New Opportunities’ (http://ficci.in/publication.asp?spid=23334) highlights some of the investment policies in India and throw light on the recent policy reforms introduced by the Government of India towards attracting greater investments in Indian States. The information in this report will be useful for the Japanese investors looking at making investments in India, both Greenfield as well as expansion of existing businesses.
For detailed report, please click: http://ficci.in/publication.asp?spid=23334
The author is Past President, FICCI & Chair, India-Japan Business Cooperation Committee (IJBCC) & Chairman, Apollo Tyres
