Meeting global standards, enhancing EoDB, fostering innovation, and investing in basic education are crucial for India's ascent in GVCs: Panellists at the CII Annual Business Summit 2024

Meeting global standards, enhancing ease of doing business, fostering innovation and investing in basic education are some of the key building blocks crucial for ensuring India’s ascent in the global value chains, concurred the panellists speaking at the session on ‘Mapping India’s ascent in the Realignment of GVCs’ during the Annual Business Summit 2024 of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) held at New Delhi today.

Highlighting the potential of India’s auto sector in deepening its footprint in the global value chains, Mr Guruprasad Mudlapur, MD, Bosch India, stated that India’s significant expertise in software development along with a substantial share in services exports and advanced technologies & R&D efforts could be leveraged to develop software-defined vehicles, thereby contributing to the evolution of the global value chain in the auto sector.

Mr Sunil Mathur, MD and CEO, Siemens India, highlighted the evolving nature of GVCs, stressing the need for integration across countries with a focus on sustainability, particularly decarbonization and circularity. He emphasized the shift towards technology-driven manufacturing, citing Industry 4.0 and digitalization as key drivers of enhanced productivity and quality. While India faces challenges in land acquisition, labor flexibility, and taxation reliability, leveraging its vast domestic market and prioritizing innovation can facilitate deeper integration into GVCs, ensuring competitiveness on a global scale, he further noted.

Emphasizing the fact that trade tensions and technological advancements are reshaping GVCs, Mr Deepak Shetty, CEO & MD, JCB India Limited underscored the fact that India's strategic location offers access to key markets, driving FDI in sectors like automobiles, construction equipment and agriculture. He, however, stressed that India's need to align with and continuously improve global quality standards. He further elaborated on the pivotal role of the MSME industry to ensure supply chain resilience.

Highlighting the existing opportunity for Indian manufacturing on the global stage amid global shifts, Mr Banmali Agrawala, Senior Advisor, Tata Sons Private Limited, noted that for India to move up the value chain and participate extensively in GVCs, there is a need to have a more systemic and greatly process driven approach while focussing on competing on quality than cost. He further added that while the country’s biggest advantage lies in the size and scale of its workforce, the critical factor for success is ensuring they possess fundamental basic education and discipline.

The session was moderated by Dr V Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor, Government of India.

18th May, 2024

New Delhi