Rahul Bajoria, managing director and head of India and ASEAN Economic Research at Bank of America, joins host Tushar Shetty to examine why India’s manufacturing sector has remained stuck at around 15 percent of GDP despite decades of rapid growth.
They discuss the colonial and planning-era roots of India’s weak industrial base, the regulatory and compliance burdens that keep Indian firms small and push them into informality, why regulatory progress has been driven by a handful of competitive states rather than by the center, India’s limited gains from China Plus One and its growing exports to China, the mixed record of production-linked incentives and the scaling up of the Apple ecosystem, and the electricity, labor and land reforms needed to lift manufacturing to 25 percent of GDP by 2047.
For more in-depth analysis on South Asia, subscribe to the Beyond the Indus podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or follow us on YouTube for video episodes.
Click here for a transcript.