As Modi makes ambitious pitch in the US, Make in India is qualified failure 10 years on
Generous business incentives, foreign investment do not solve the fundamental problems of a huge skills deficit and the complexity of doing business in India.
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This month marks the 10th anniversary of Make in India, and it is useful to take stock and assess whether the programme has delivered on one of the central planks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s signature pitch: an invitation to the rest of the world to “Come, Make in India”. To cut to the chase, Make in India has been a qualified failure. India has failed to capitalise on favourable global conditions and substantially increase investment in manufacturing.
The strategic question for Indian policymakers was how to increase the share of manufacturing investment in the composition of Foreign Direct Investment, or FDI, inflows. Historically, the country has lagged peers in Southeast Asia due to the region’s more welcoming environment for foreign investors. The Asian Development Bank also suggests that foreign investors favour Southeast Asia because of opportunities from regional integration.
Despite Indian companies appearing to be reluctant partners in the Make in India push, official data indicates FDI has soared in the last two decades, putting the government’s statistics at odds with international data sources that show fluctuations and a clear dip from 2020. Data from the Make in India secretariat suggest that total FDI inflows between 2000 and 2023 totalled $919 billion, while...
