LOOKING BELOW THE SURFACE TO COMPARE THESE TWO RISING ASIAN BUSINESS GIANTS

INDIA AND CHINA -

(Picture left) Infosys campus in India, and (picture right) A street in New Delhi

India has emerged as a trading superpower and as an increasing magnet for FDI. Its role in the internation economy to this point has been less remarked than the rise and dominance of China but increasingly India appreciated for the opportunities it is creating for its citizens, employers and foreign and domestic firms. A glance, India doesnt look like a major trading superpower or a place where your company should be consid siting a factory. Major complaints heard by visit execs often involve the poor state of infrastructure, the ch traffic, that the democratic process hinders development, that corruption is endemic and that bureaucracy i rampant. To this, many manufacturers must factor in that relations between China and India are formal bu warm and that apparently neither side trusts the other, which to this point has limited either location from generally serving the other for exports.

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You only have to drive the roads from Bangalore out to Infosys or to some of the major biotech companies located in the South to appreciate that roads are in fact overcrowded an need expansion. Also, ports are a problem. According to several sources, Shanghai can turn around a ship in eight hours. In Bombay, it takes three days. Competitiveness studie (please see this website for more on this) also make the case that India needs to reform procedures and lessen red tape. Despite this, India shouldnt be neglected - things are changing here and India should be on every businesspersons radar.

To better understand what India is and what it is not, lets compare it to China. First, forget the hype about China and India. Keep in mind that despite all the talk of China or Indias rising status, both China and Ind still desperately poor countries with large disparities in incomes across each country. In China nearly half o country's labor force remains in agriculture (about 60 percent in India). Also, despite all the talk about Ind software engineers and Nobel laureates and Chinese engineering whizzes, India has the largest number of illiterate people in the world and China also is burdened with a large number of rural poorly educated who w offer continued challenges for economic development. (Indias illiteracy rate is nearly 40 percent and China nearly 10 percent according to World Bank statistics.) Of the total of 2.3 billion people in these two countri nearly 1.5 billion earn less than US$2 a day, according to World Bank calculations. The opportunities in bo countries are substantial; the challenges are also large.

With this in mind, lets compare the two countries by size: China is the worlds third-largest country after Ru and Canada and is the second largest country by land area. India is about a third of Chinas size. In terms population, China tops India at 1.3 billion people compared to India at just over 1 billion but India is growin faster rate and has a younger population. In terms of political systems, China is a communist country whic economically is following market reforms that encourage free trade and capitalist-based business models. by comparison, is the worlds largest democracy, but with a system of commerce that until the 1980s was b on the Soviet model and has since been reforming itself to follow more free trade and capitalist-based mod China has been reforming its economy since 1978; India has been working since 1991 but at a faster rate o speed. Top 15 Manufactuing Nations Further, in terms of manufacturing Chinas lead over India in terms of manufacturing is considerable. China is the worlds third largest nation in terms of manufacturing after the U.S. and Japan. India is a still impressive, but much further back 12th place in the same list according to Global Insight and the Financial Times. This points out the fact that to this point, Indias success in expanding its service industry has yet to be as firmly demonstrated in the manufacturing sector. 2006 US Japan China Germany France UK 2025 China US Japan Germany South Korea France

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In terms of performance, here are some charts comparing and contrasting the two economies in terms of first GDP, then exports and finally imports:

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South Korea Italy Brazil Canada Russia India Spain Mexico Indonedia

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India UK Italy Brazil Russia Indonesia Mexico Taiwan Canada

As can be seen, China is by far the bigger economy, the bigger exporter and the bigger importer but dont assume that all the advantages go to China. Here are some differences to consider: Tax Regimes

China: Corporate Income Tax: 24% Tax-Incentives for high-tech industries: 15% Tax Holidays for manufacturing industries: Initial two years of profitability: 0 percent tax Next three years of profitability: 50% of tax rate (This is assumed to be 12%)

India:

Indias tax system is being reformed as we write this. Following is the tax system for Indias Special Economi Zones: Corporate Income Tax: 15% First five years of profitability: 0% tax Second five years of profitability: 50% tax (This is assumed to be 7.5%.) Third five years of profitability: 50% of tax rate for any invested dividends that are invested back into India

As can be seen, India has introduced a tax regime that is vastly more advantageous in the Special Economi Zones than China. Another benefit of India over China with respect to locating in the Special Economic Zon that India does not discriminate between manufacturing and services and either can offer the above incenti which is not the case in China. (Service companies are treated less favorably in China for incentives.) Company Development

Tax incentives are not the only area that India is ahead of China in. Generally, Indian capital markets far e their Chinese counterparts in terms of transparency and predictability. Indian companies can list domestica the Bombay Stock Exchange, Asias oldest exchange. China has both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. Shanghai is larger than Bombay in terms of capitalization (Bombay has US$1 trillion with 4,833 companies and Shanghai has US$1.7 trillion with 849 companies) but what differs the two exchanges is not their size but that Bombay is run to international standards and has tremendous stability in the quality of it companies. On the other hand, Chinas Securities Commission has no powers to impose punishments, whic

must be imposed by the courts. Further as the government is the major stockholder of its State-owned enterprises all these firms are not subject to independent policing and true financial analysis meaning that value of many of these firms is suspect. This means that generally India has the more transparent econom Company Management Capabilities

India, however, is not only ahead in financial transparency. Although there are many excellent Chinese companies, generally the management abilities of many Chinese businesses is not as strong as their Indian counterparts. Part of this is due to the fact that reform in China started barely 30 years ago and that management training has not become of interest till recently. Also, it is a factor that in many respects it is rest of the world that came to China to produce in the last decade and not Chinas homegrown export indus that has driven exports. In fact, if one looks at cross-border activity, China has yet to become active in acquisitions to-date, although there is indications this is starting to change. Big acquisitions by Chinese businesses include Lenovos takeover of IBMs PC business and more recently the Chinese acquisition of an interest in Blackstone, which is a different twist on things. On the other hand, Indian companies have been on a tear building up international assets and expanding throughout the world. Recent examples:

Tata Steels $13.6 Billion Acquisition of Corus Mittal Steels even larger $31 billion purchase of Arcelor Tata Groups acquisition of U.S.-based Glaceau, a health drinks and water manufacturer, for US$677 million Tata Teas purchase of a controlling stake in Britains Tetley for US$407 million Indias wind energy firm Suzlons acquisition of Hansent Transmission for $324 million Infosyss $28 million acquisition from Phillips of BPO centers in Chennai; Lodz, Poland and Bangkok, Thailand. Indian Phamaceutical giant Ranbaxys acquisition of Romanias Terapia Ballarpur Industries (an Indian Paper and Pulp company) and JP Morgans acquisition of Malaysias S Forest Industries

As can be seen from the above examples, Indian companies are actively becoming world players. Chinese companies really cant match the breadth or the depth of acquisitions and this is giving Indian companies a over their Chinese counterparts. Communication

Despite what some Europeans, and especially the French, have come to think; English is the international language of business and one of the further reasons for Indias success is the fact that Indian businesses generally speak it at all levels and with a high degree of precision, while Chinese businesses do not. Althou Mandarin is the worlds most spoken native language, with some 874,000,000 native speakers, it is also sp only 16 countries in any substantial proportion of the population and those are all in Asia. English is the wo third largest spoken language with over 380 million people speaking it natively. Despite the fact the absolu total is much less, the spread of countries 104 speaking English in a high proportion of the population and an official language is six and a half times greater than Mandarin and over 600 million people speak Engli second language, including 89% of current students in the worlds other developed powerhouse, the EU. T is that Mandarin is still a regional Asian language and not a world language in the same way as English is. Internet, the difference is even more striking: Native language: English Number who has Internet access: 287.5 million

Percentage of Worlds online population: 35.2 % Native language: Other European Number who has Internet access: 276 million Percentage of Worlds online population: 37.9% Native language: All Asian languages (including Mandarin) Number of world online population 240 million Percentage of World online population: 33%

Source: Global Reach (global-reach.biz/globstats)

Global Internet Statistics (by Language) ASIAN LANGUAGES Language Arabic Chinese Japanese Korean Malay Thai Vietnamese Total Asian Language Internet access (Millions) 10.5 102.6 69.7 29.9 13.6 4.9 2.2 204.6 Percentage of world online population 1.4% 14.1% 9.6% 4.1% 1.9%

33.0%

Total World

729.2

100%

As can be seen from the above, Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese) is only 13.7% of the online population while English is 35.2%. Finally, over 80% of scientific articles are published in English, up from 60% fifty years ago. Indian managers ability to communicate easily in English gives them a tremendous advantage and India is making skilled use of that advantage.

As can be seen from the above, on the surface, China looks like the stronger player but some of that differe veneer only. India does have advantages in many areas and these areas are generally the sorts finance, management, and communications - that have effects throughout the system. For these reasons, we belie India cannot be ignored. Here are our projections and our recommendations:

a. Indias economic growth will move roughly equal to Chinas at 10 % by 2008 but will then exceed China Chinas economy slows to less than double digit figures

b. India will increasingly start to replace China as a site for lower-end export manufacturing and for proje that have higher content of labor c. Indian companies will continue to globalize at a faster rate than their Chinese counterparts.

d. Every company needs an India strategy both for sourcing, review for potential factory relocation and term as a sales base.