Scaling the export competitiveness ladder: What should India do?

It is possible to rapidly climb the export competitiveness ladder and our vast labour force with low unit labour cost coupled with current global geopolitical conditions affords us the opportunity

As we actively pursue the policy of grabbing a slice of the global supply chain, two questions arise: One, how quickly countries can climb the export competitiveness ladder? Two, what is needed to enhance export competitiveness as countries jostle for space?

Structure of our balance of payments

Our external balance of payments shows a persistent current account deficit despite a substantial surplus on services exports and remittances received from overseas Indians, primarily due to a large merchandise trade deficit. For example, in 2021-22, the trade deficit was $191 billion. Admittedly, this was mainly due to oil imports. Even if we