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Chandni
Chowk To China: Lessons for Indian SMEs to tame the Dragon NEW
DELHI: SMALL and medium entrepreneurs in India must be driven by a sense
of collaboration, rather than competition, while doing business with
China. This was the conclusive theme of a discussion, ‘Chandni
Chowk To China’, among economists, business heads and govt
functionaries here on Monday. The event, organised by The Economic Times
in association with Ficci, had on board Dr Amit Mitra, general secretary
Ficci, Jawahar Sircar, special secretary, ministry of commerce, Rajeev
Karwal, CEO of Milagrow, SME consultant, Ashok George, head of Hero
MindMine, Sanjay Chakravarty, head of China desk, Ernst & Young, and
Dinesh Aggrawal, group head IndiaMart. A question and answer session
followed the discussion where many micro and small entrepreneurs doing
business in China took part. While Dr Mitra showed concern on the hidden subsidies provided by the state to Chinese industry, he was confident once China becomes a market economy in true sense of the world, i.e. when it starts providing a level-playing field, the enterprise-driven Indian industry will prove its superiority. “This will happen in 2015 when it will be required to follow the WTO norms,” he said. Meanwhile, Indian businessmen must work on the areas where China “needs our expertise and make a neat profit from it”. Mr Sircar exhorted Indian businessmen to come out of habitual distrust of China. “Come out and visit the country. See it for yourself what opportunities lie there for you. And then learn from their strengths, bring about a synergy for the benefit of both.” Mr Karwal echoed this sentiment by expressing the need for the spirit of collaboration instead of considering the Chinese as rivals. Explaining how several Asians countries like Japan, Korea and now China gradually honed their manufacturing skills, Mr Karwal said, “We must now honestly see how we can move up the value chain with the same national pride as the Chinese did.” Mr Chakravarty and Mr George both were of the opinion that it was easy to do business with China in the sectors where it required Indian help. The clearances come fast, implementation faster, if your venture helps them to do better in their own sector. They will go an extra mile if you want to set up an English school there, which may not be the case if you were to present them competition in electronics or pharmaceuticals, they felt. Mr Aggrawal listed out the opportunities of doing business online with Chinese. “There are separate B2B sites online which are China-specific and China-India specific,” he said. The event was the culmination point of a series of articles on the theme in the Hindi edition of The Economic Times. |