India’s Minister for Human Resources, Education and Science and Technology Kapil Sibal has urged New Zealand businesses and investors to take a serious look at the country’s two high growth sectors – healthcare and education.
Outlining the scale of the opportunity, the minister said the entire healthcare system for a whopping 1.2 billion people in India was up for grabs in an economic environment that has been fuelled by near double-digit growth for nearly a decade.
Speaking to businesspeople under the aegis of the India New Zealand Business Council in Auckland on Monday, Mr Sibal eloquently traced the spectacular growth in the Indian economy over the past ten years.
The country even registered 8% growth when the world was reeling under the financial crisis and was looking to even faster growth as the markets recovered in the near to medium term, he said.
India has a sizable and growing technically competent, English-speaking workforce that gives a great advantage to foreign companies looking at investing in the healthcare sector, particularly in the field of high technology based diagnostic equipment, he said.
The economies of scale achieved owing to a combination of this technically competent work force, low operating and labour costs and the huge volume of a hitherto untapped market provide could provide huge profits for investors, he pointed out.
It was this low installed base that was ensuring rapid growth in several sectors of the economy and would continue to do so for years because of the size of the population. In contrast, western markets registered comparatively slower growth in their economies because they were saturated, Mr Sibal said.
He revealed that India had the largest communications satellite system in the world and innovators were constantly finding ways and means to put this infrastructure to use for the benefit of common people. For instance, there have been several working examples of telemedicine already in successful operation in many parts of India.
Detection of eye diseases like glaucoma as well as monitoring the physiological condition of patients was being done remotely with the use of the growing mobile phone and satellite communication infrastructure in the country, he said.
The government was in the process of putting together legislation as well as standards in place for medical testing and diagnostic equipment in the country to bring it up to speed with standards in the developed world.
That would open opportunities for both investment in the sector and help the spread of affordable technical equipment not only across India but also other parts of the developing world.
“The idea is to build the best possible product for the best possible price,” he said.
Turning to education, the Harvard Law School educated former high profile lawyer and Solicitor General of India turned politician said the sector – particularly primary and secondary education – was bound to take off in a big way a big boost following the legislation of the right to education this year.
The right, now enshrined in the Indian Constitution, makes it imperative for the state to provide free education to children up to year 12. It was a market of over 220 million children, he said. He hoped it would go some way in addressing the school drop out rate, which was as high as 42%.
To a question by Indian Weekender about where the money to educate such a large population would come from, Mr Sibal said education, being the responsibility of both the central and individual state governments, would be funded by both governments. A major share (55%) would be picked up by the national government while the states would pick up the other 45%. This would come from the states’ revenues in their budgets, he said.
He also said that unlike in past years, states had healthy balance sheets and had enough funds to be allocated to primary and secondary education.
Education was now an issue important enough to make or break governments at elections and no state government would renege on the commitment to setting aside funds for education.
With an estimated 330 million English speakers in the country – now regarded by some as the world’s largest English-speaking nation – the potential for modernising educational content is huge. The content available at present was dated and “uninteresting” for children, Mr Sibal said.
He urged content providers to go to India and work with local creative talent to produce more engaging and modernised educational and instructional content.
Speaking exclusively to Indian Weekender after his address, Mr Sibal said he had a successful exchange with his counterpart in Australia. His meeting with Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard was “very positive” he said.
There were several confidence building and security measures planned to address the situation created by the spate of attacks on Indian students in that country over the past year, he said (see accompanying report on the minister’s Australia visit).
“But I told them to come to India and set up their campuses there – because they would get both volumes and the right kind of students who they could train and then pave the way for their work and settlement in Australia. I think that makes a lot more sense and would be practical for both countries. And I’ve said the same thing here in New Zealand,” he said.
National MP Kanwaljit Bakshi later told Indian Weekender Mr Sibal renewed an agreement with Education Minister Anne Tolley in Wellington to strengthen and broaden New Zealand’s education engagement with India.
Concluding his impressive address, the well-spoken senior Indian parliamentarian said the key to business success in today’s environment was not competition but “collaborative leveraging.” He said only those joint ventures would be financially successful, which complement each other’s strengths while delivering value to their customers.
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