India flaunts it at Davos

By Antoine Clarke | 23 January 2006

The annual World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, is better known for its gathering of wealthy nations' fat cats and its counter-culture of mostly white middle-class protestors against free markets, ostensibly for the good of the world's poor.

This time a major marketing push by India's goverment and businesses will aim to demostrate that india has arrived on the international scene, not only as the world's second largest population, but as a thriving economic and cultural power.

The figures tell a story. Economic growth is expected to be 8% in 2006, at a time when Japan would consider 1% a major success. There are now 91 businesses in India with turnover in excess of $1 billion, stock market capitalisation is in the $500 billion range, and there are reportedly over 200 million people learning English in India.

It's worth contrasting this image with the pessimistic predictions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. India was headed for "inevitable" mass famine. Its population would drop as disease and chronic malnutrition raised the death rate. Corruption was seen as "endemic" and the combination of bureaucracy, protectionism, and a willingness to support the pirating of foreign trade marks were major obstacles to inward investment.