Indian Economics thread.

[ansy1968]

How many unicorns does the Philippines have? Of course population is not the only requirement but population is a prerequisite to having true heft. The Philippines has always sort of been the sick man of SE Asia-- this goes back to the 1980s. If you see the distribution of furniture exporters that left China due to the tariff war-- Vietnam benefited the most, followed by Thailand and Malaysia, then Indonesia. On the other hand India is not as bad because it went from being the sick man of South Asia in the 1980s trailing behind Pakistan to moving ahead of Pakistan now.

India emerges as China’s tech challenger with record run​

India is rapidly closing the gap with China in minting new unicorns — privately held start-ups valued at $1bn or more — highlighting growing investor appetite for tech start-ups in the country as the pandemic accelerates the adoption of digital services. Over the past year, 15 companies from India raised capital at a valuation of $1bn or more for the first time, according to CB Insights and company announcements gathered by Nikkei Asia. Ten of them became unicorns in 2021. By comparison, only two of the 15 companies from China that joined the list over the past year did so in 2021, according to CB Insights.

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In reality though, I am optimistic about the future of the Philippines and Southeast Asia in general, especially the Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia because the latter two have decent sized populations and stable demographics and the former is in a position to benefit.

In China, Chinese tech companies are getting it from both sides -- Xi's crackdown is against them, and the US govt is against them. As a private tech company, with the two most powerful governments in the world against you, what chance do you have? I am confident China could have generated a lot more than 2 unicorns this year and beaten India easily, but so many IPOs were cancelled or downsized due to the tech crackdown and no doubt this had a bad effect on private equity as well. Meanwhile if you are a US, Indian or Southeast Asian company then your governments support you, and you got no political worries. You focus 100% of your energy on innovation, profits, creating jobs, and expansion. A dream.

@gadgetcool5 bro, from what I learned any tech unicorns need a willing adaptive consumer market to thrive, our advantage, English is our second language, a legacy of American occupation. But it has its downside, instead of developing unicorn tech locally the allure of the dollar forces many to migrate abroad. So we had a brain drain cause we and of the Indians can easily assimilate in the West. I think all the countries colonize by either the British or the American face the same problem after decades of being independent our colonizer is still exploiting our resources( intellectual manpower). So your thesis is half correct India is a big question mark (no pun intended) but true of others like Indonesia and Vietnam among the ASEAN and especially the country of East Asia.

And to break that cycle we need to diversify and the Chinese market is a good way of developing unicorn due to proximity and the presence of a large Chinese diaspora.

 

[Tyler]

T

The rules have already been made. Check the new regulations, they seem prety clear to me.

Whats also clear is that almost all of these tech companies are involved in some kind of monopolistic behaviour.

It is now up to them to fix these practises, otherwise when the regulators come and knock their door (it will happen), they will be fined to high heaven if they keep ignoring the Alibaba's lesson

China will probably produce a couple of unicorns in semiconductor related technologies. India, south east Asia and Vietnam still lag far behind in semiconductors. Do they even make chips in India at all? Semiconductors technology is where it counts.

 

[ougoah]

Guys these spaces are the equivalent of those hand me marks in exams. They're ALL finance and social media or internet spaces and they aren't globally competitive.



It's like passing first grade while others are in high school and saying you're better because those guys can't ever do the same first grade exams again. It shows they're moving. That's literally it. How many Indian SMEEs or SMICs or the dozen and more Chinese IC R&D and fab companies has India got even with total supply chain access? That reveals a lot about how global investors truly view India and not just Bloomberg, FT, WSJ headlines. How many Huaweis does India have? How many BYDs? And the hundreds of less well known but thriving and genuinely impressive Chinese companies. Both buy out foreign ones with capital where they are allowed but a few unknown and unimpressive fintech and social media companies isn't that impressive. Where's India's equivalent to SWIFT? Or Alipay? Or Wechat? seeing as Groww is "minted" according to Bloomberg.

India has the same advantage of having a large market. It allows for thriving internet space but these are indeed low hanging fruit until those corporations become globally competitive and lead their fields. This is like the guy that goes around collecting cans and bottles to recycle and because he collects a lot and makes money from it, it's not exactly like building an exascale supercomputer.

 

[ougoah]

China will probably produce a couple of unicorns in semiconductor related technologies. India, south east Asia and Vietnam still lag far behind in semiconductors. Do they even make chips in India at all? Semiconductors technology is where it counts.

They make their own military chips for some platforms that are made in India. An Indian made Su-30MKI probably may not have Indian fabbed chips though because the kits are Russian lie J-11 in the past. They could upgrade some select sub-components with their own for example their A2A missiles would probably be using Indian designed and made chips in the 0.18micro metre to 90nm range. If Rafale is ever made in India, I doubt it would be using a single Indian chip. But they do have plenty of things where they do use their own chips.

Their military chips are their most capable with roughly 1990 to 2003 level tech and they have access to the entire supply chain BUT they currently don't have domestic research and design for chips so they can't exactly go to TSMC to fab one of their designs. They also do not have any domestic tooling and have mastered none of the fab technologies yet. The Indian fabs currently use only foreign supplied tooling and equipment in contrast to China which has long had totally mastered some of the supply chain and got its own fab equipment but lacks the entire set and now cut off from accessing the entire spectrum.

For India's situation this is partly because they don't have the domestic industry for commercial or even military products that require even post 2000s chip performance. They don't yet have domestic equivalents of even mid tier electronics companies like Gree or Midea or Hisense let alone something like DJI which use higher performance modern chips.

However it should be noted that India is still chock full of talent and the capability to do all this like China. It's simply less resourceful and politically messy which means fewer state sanctioned policies to climb out of that development trap. It's less organised compared to China due to statecraft and doesn't have market force advantages over China due to lower resource state and the fact that China despite being authoritarian, does wield market forces surprisingly well for an authoritarian nation. Both suffer from immense brain drain. India can catch up if they devote disproportionately high focus and resources to this field and applies time with effective planning and implementation but if all factors are equal, it holds no advantage compared to China. In fact every regard is at a disadvantage until Indian population surpasses China's AND all those other factors are equal and India organises a "long march" towards becoming a semiconductor giant. It's like getting hit by lightning right before winning the lottery chances of unlikely though given the general direction Modi's leadership and the intellectual migration of its masses is heading.

Or the US can force TSMC along with Japanese/Korean and Dutch experts to not only set everything they have up in India but also create an entire generation of Indian experts to be brought up to scratch and then take over. That's more likely than the former but would require a lot of US vassals and allies to give up a big source of income.

 

[ougoah]

Democracy works great for developed countries because it allows them to buy power in underdeveloped countries right up to the point the local population gets so disgusted they rise up and revolt, e.g. Cuba in '58.

Its then deemed a coup and 'anti-democratic' so they can sanction and basically lay siege on the place until 'democracy' is restored and they can buy the next lot.

Because things worked out so messily in Cuba, so the modern rendering of it is to simply allow the local population to pick some puppet who inherits a mountain of IMF debt or other problems and has no real options but to go along and when things turn sour its painted as your own fault, you picked your leader! A lot less messy than propping up an unpopular leader like what happened in pre-revolutionary Iran!

Sometimes it takes a bit longer, case in point India, for most of its existence the Union of India was non-aligned despite a war in '62 with China relations were OK, under the Congress led government they even came together in BRICS. Fast forward a few years and India is now a rabid China hating member of the QUAD on the back of some vague IoUs and promises of help and the usual pump and dump fast buck cyclical economics, beloved of American Bankers, that is merely quick drying paint to hide the real structural issues. A stiff breeze (like a pandemic) a the whole deck of cards comes tumbling down, depending on how things turn out the next puppet please!

Democracy can work in under-developed countries if you just ring fenced them from interference by developed ones, unless you're an anarchist, you'd vote for the people who'd do good, right! End of day a classic case of guns don't kill people, people kill people!

On the broad conversation on capital, this is pretty on point.

A few European nations industrialised first and prior to, during, and even after industrialising, they also benefited from land, labour, and resources they simply colonised, plundered, and enslaved. They developed their countries and infrastructure, cultivated GENERATIONS of experts, engineers, scientists, mathematicians along with academic and industrial institutions that humanity has never witnessed on a scale that's never been done before. After that, the only nations/civilisations. BTW it's worth noting that all of this became possible due in no small part to the gradual western rejection (sutble but that's the renaisssance) of Abrahamic faiths and forging a daring new way to live and think. It's not all praise and positivity or criticism and underestimating because there is much nuance in this but this is rather important on the subject of India and China - two nations that are still somewhat entrenched in mysticism and stupidity... well one certainly still is much more than the other. Rejecting organised religion, churches, and mysticism does NOT mean rejecting spirituality, decency, and believing in a greater purpose/being etc whatever.

No nation post western industrialisation has ever grown and developed out of poverty and underdevelopment without either the will of already developed powers or authoritarianism. Japan did it that way, Singapore did it that way, South Korea did it that way, and China is doing it that way. There are plenty of examples of failures and some of them aren't exactly through any fault of their own although I'd argue that North Korea's current method is even now still inferior to what PRC had under Mao... its worst phase (but arguably the one that built some decent foundations for future). So there is definitely workable and effective authoritarianism and a whole spectrum of it that isn't quite suitable.

A democratic India is going to keep facing the dilemma of this scale. Whether to risk that image and all that faith in democracy by openly becoming more obviously authoritarian, or continuing with the farce of an undeveloped but democratic nation. Democratic nations face plundering from behind the scenes. Particularly if their institutions aren't strong and their leaders are poor and more easily corrupted. This is partly why the US prefers undeveloped and developing nations to adopt some form of democracy. It can do as it pleases with those leaders behind the scenes.

 

[spring2017]

Is this analyst a little too harsh on India in terms of it's potential and economic viability for the future notwithstanding the current covid-19 tragedy that's ravaging parts of India at the moment.

I laughed when a Bank of America banker told me that India was going to be a second China a couple of years ago. He listed large growing population and low base of development as driver of such growth.

He completely missed the fundamental reason why China could grow this fast : China's 1949 revolution and the land reform and the socialist system that achieved through the revolution.

For starters, India's development needs education and infrastructures, and its capitalist ruling class is not interested in providing those to the masses. They are only interested in making themselves rich through keeping their masses oppressed and exploited.

Smaller capitalist countries like South Korea may have motivation to educate their small population as the ruling elite there see export as main source of profit.

And imperialist powers may also want to have technological superiority as they make money from oppressing and exploiting the rest of the world.

But in the large "developing" capitalist countries, the capitalists can make enough just by exploiting their own population. Keeping the masses ignorant is the best way to maintain their rule.

There is absolutely no hope for any large capitalist economies to achieve fast growth comparable to China's.

 

[ougoah]

China, US, India, all understand the market and use economic theories to make good their political goals. The difference between China and the US is that while both understand and use market forces, the capitalist class in China do exist but at the end of the day they work for the state and are owned by the state. In the US, the capitalist class owns the state and the state works for them, all day, every day. One can argue how appropriate either side is but who cares what they think here on this thread. With India, I'm actually not entirely sure the leaders there truly understand it that well or know how to manage it appropriately. A lot of unrealised potential in India that's for sure but that goes for anywhere with a population and intense underdevelopment.

 

[hkbc]

They make their own military chips for some platforms that are made in India. An Indian made Su-30MKI probably may not have Indian fabbed chips though because the kits are Russian lie J-11 in the past. They could upgrade some select sub-components with their own for example their A2A missiles would probably be using Indian designed and made chips in the 0.18micro metre to 90nm range. If Rafale is ever made in India, I doubt it would be using a single Indian chip. But they do have plenty of things where they do use their own chips.

Their military chips are their most capable with roughly 1990 to 2003 level tech and they have access to the entire supply chain BUT they currently don't have domestic research and design for chips so they can't exactly go to TSMC to fab one of their designs. They also do not have any domestic tooling and have mastered none of the fab technologies yet. The Indian fabs currently use only foreign supplied tooling and equipment in contrast to China which has long had totally mastered some of the supply chain and got its own fab equipment but lacks the entire set and now cut off from accessing the entire spectrum.

Military Chips tend to be somewhat specialised, trading feature size for robustness, because of their limited production runs, yield is also never an issue, whereas in commercial ICs yield is everything!

For military applications hardened FPGA can often be just as good as custom silicon.

India licenses lots of 2nd hand western technology, the Vikas rocket engine in the GLSV III is just a licensed Viking from the original Ariane with a 'developed in India' badge on it and it buys lots of pre-built line replaceable units which they integrate themselves. they could just use a bucket load of Xilinx FPGAs with a small amount of custom silicon.

That said they did manage to build their own fly by wire flight control system for the Tejas from scratch and it pretty much worked first time, although they had to go to America to actually get it tested!

 

[ougoah]

Military Chips tend to be somewhat specialised, trading feature size for robustness, because of their limited production runs, yield is also never an issue, whereas in commercial ICs yield is everything!

For military applications hardened FPGA can often be just as good as custom silicon.

India licenses lots of 2nd hand western technology, the Vikas rocket engine in the GLSV III is just a licensed Viking from the original Ariane with a 'developed in India' badge on it and it buys lots of pre-built line replaceable units which they integrate themselves. they could just use a bucket load of Xilinx FPGAs with a small amount of custom silicon.

That said they did manage to build their own fly by wire flight control system for the Tejas from scratch and it pretty much worked first time, although they had to go to America to actually get it tested!

Yep which is why India hasn't yet bothered to start any domestic semiconductor design or fab organisations that aim to be globally competitive anytime soon. They don't have the political/military need for them because what they have is adequate and they also do not have the commercial entities that create the market forces which push towards creating their own. This can and probably will become untrue with time as they begin developing those sectors as China has started about four decades ago. That's not a very long time but I feel the world is very unwelcoming of newcomers. It's as difficult as climbing out of perpetual poverty and the last nation to have done this was China. The globalists ruined Thailand and the Asian tigers and gifted Japan a "lost decade". They seem to want India as a sacrificial military pawn against China rather than allow it to truly develop as still maintain sovereignty over its own land. I doubt significant help will ever be freely granted to India. They won't even give them much less but talk a grand deal of glamour about Quad military gangs like a bunch of pathetic schoolboys with a lot of tough talk of "watch out China". On their own, they'd be annihilated without the US... lol and even with the US, that's the end anyway.

Tejas in and of itself is an impressive feat. Not considering peripheral talking points. They clearly can do things and get them right eventually. They're not alone in that though. India's most impressive and globally competitive tech area is actually thorium nuclear energy. Leading many aspects of thorium reactor research.

I probably should have included the fact that military chips aren't chasing yield and don't necessarily require them although it is actually still much advantageous. That's been talked about quite often in the past, elsewhere on this forum so I missed the point thinking it was obvious. Why has India not yet developed many of their own electronics companies. They can and always start small. They've got the people and the market. It's not a great technology barrier because there are thirsty global corps and even Chinese ones that are looking to make money off the Indian market with partnerships. In fact plenty of Chinese companies do have manufacturing and offices in India... that includes Huawei. India just needs a few electronics companies and then there is a need for Indian semiconductors but since they can always buy foreign ones, I doubt they'd pursue the field unless government finds the funding to support it. It's not a cheap endeavour.

 

[hkbc]

I probably should have included the fact that military chips aren't chasing yield and don't necessarily require them although it is actually still much advantageous. That's been talked about quite often in the past, elsewhere on this forum so I missed the point thinking it was obvious. Why has India not yet developed many of their own electronics companies. They can and always start small. They've got the people and the market. It's not a great technology barrier because there are thirsty global corps and even Chinese ones that are looking to make money off the Indian market with partnerships. In fact plenty of Chinese companies do have manufacturing and offices in India... that includes Huawei. India just needs a few electronics companies and then there is a need for Indian semiconductors but since they can always buy foreign ones, I doubt they'd pursue the field unless government finds the funding to support it. It's not a cheap endeavour.

All said and done, before anyone (even the Indians themselves) are going to invest in large scale semi-conductor manufacturing there, India needs to sort out the basics first, adequate and redundant power and water supplies, otherwise its just going to be a giant money pit every time there's a brown out and 'Indian Semiconductors' will just be a set of empty words like 'World's Pharmacy'!