Growth of India's Telecom Services (1991-2007): Can It Lead to Emergence of a Manufacturing Hub?
暂无分享,去创建一个
Sunil Mani (mani@cds.ac.in) is at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. phenom nal growth of the information technology (it) industry in India has brought to the fore the growing importance of the country as a knowledge powerhouse. But this competitiveness is restricted to the services sector. In fact, it is the sector that is increasingly contributing to the high growth rate recorded in the country. Despite showing a good growth performance over the last three or four years, the manufacturing sector is still a relative non-performer although three industries, namely, auto parts, cotton textiles and pharmaceuticals are showing much dynamism in terms of exports. However India's exports have now diversified to encompass services. The service sector in general has come to occupy preeminent position in India's economy in terms of its contribution to overall gdp, exports and as a destination for foreign direct investments (Table 1, p 38). Manufactured exports are still dominated by low and medium technology products although, earlier some hi-tech products such as pharmaceuticals and certain types of machine tools have crept into India's export basket. But the growth of it exports and the evidence of moving up the value chain in it, the emergence of other high technology industries such as biotechnology, aerospace, etc, is enabling India to be in the' league of high technology producers from the developing world. The recent growth of research and development (r&d) outsourcing is yet another illustration of the country's prowess in high technology activities. An interesting dimension of high technology production in India is that this capability is largely in the realm of services. However, there are indications that this capability is slowly percolating into hi-tech manufacturing. And an industry where it is very clearly visible is telecommunication where a revolution of sorts is taking place [Mani 2007]. In the context, the purpose of the present paper is understand the technological implications of the phenomenal growth of this industry.
[1] Michael G. Pollitt,et al. Private Initiatives in Infrastructure , 2002 .