Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Indian Rupee ....What it can do !!!

Let me ask a question first.
What type of economic strength is preferable to India?A) A strong Indian economy fueled by its cheap labor due to a weaker rupee against dollar, where the Indians end up working in shifts, late nights, whole nights and what not… only doing low profile jobs which foreign companies want to offload to India, so that they can concentrate on high end works and become even better. For instance in IT field, providing BPO services, support and maintenance work for products…
OR
B) A strong Indian economy fueled by its strong innovations and products, no matter whether the rupee is strong or weak against dollar.. where Indians work only in regular office hours of 9 to 6, developing cutting edge technologies and solutions, selling our world class products both inside and outside India. For instance in IT field, imagine operating systems, compilers, databases etc all coming out of India..
I do not deny the fact that the IT boom in India came to a large extent because of (A). Well and good, we have had the benefits of our cost being cheap in western markets due to a weak rupee against dollar.. We have had our share because of this advantage in the past 2 decades..
But at the same time doesn't it make sense to move towards (B), instead of crying foul against rupee becoming stronger against dollar?
What a pity! Indian IT companies are feeling bad because rupee is becoming stronger against dollar! Reason, their profits will go down when the value of rupee is stronger, as every single dollar that comes into their account now means lesser rupee than earlier..(if for instance earlier they used to get 47 rupees for every dollar that comes in, but today its about 40!)
But isn't this a matter of celebration? Our rupee is gaining importance internationally and is becoming stronger again .. How many of us know that in 1947 when India got independence 1 Rupee was 1.2 US dollars?
These Indian IT companies instead of relying on a weaker rupee for their profit should now look at coming out with innovative products and technical solutions. What have these companies done in the arena of core system products? Why don't we have any operating systems, compilers, database systems, development platforms etc coming out of India ? Why don't we develop tools like photoshop or flash? We have talent, but they all are working in American companies on these products... Cannot our Indian IT companies setup at least small teams to develop such products?
Instead they are planning to make their employees work on saturdays too! So that their profits can increase due to extra hours the employees put in... As if India doesn't have any other option other than cheap labor, workaholic labor!! Are there no brains in India who can setup companies developing products and make money just by printing out more serial numbers and burning their product DVDs?
If Indian companies continue to depend on its weak currency, then how would Indian economy survive in a world where all currencies have equal value? Survival of the fittest... Only greater innovation can help us in that case...
We need to have knowledge and technological advantage if India wants to become a superpower, not low cost based cheap labor advantage! Let the Chinese do it...
I hope that rupee becomes more and stronger so that Indians are forced to use their brains and come up with innovative products and next generation technologies, than to provide low end services…
We need to create a situation where other countries line up to buy our F-16s, to buy our operating systems, to buy our mobile phones and I-pods, to buy our Boeing, to buy our Mercedes…
A stronger rupee means we can easily afford foreign trips!
"A stronger rupee means Indians can buy things anywhere in the world on par with developed economies! We don't have to spend crores of rupees then to buy a Boeing! We don't have to pay tens of thousands of rupees for international air travels! A stronger rupee means greater international exposure! There won't be a difference between buying a Maruti and buying a Mercedes! One can go on a trip to the Grand Canyon just like the way one goes to Ladakh or Nepal! How do you think Americans are able to tour all over the world? Because they earn more? No. But because their currency USD is stronger... And this is where a strong rupee will lead us to! "
I am not saying providing low end services are wrong... It gave us a very good start in the 90s. But that should definitely not be the bread and butter fueling our economic boom indefinitely in the future... For the simple reason that it can't continue to do so any longer... other low cost destinations, cheaper than India are already coming up in the world… Let us move ahead… become more innovative.. . the journey has just started… This is just the beginning of all the beginnings.

6 comments:

NR said...

Could not agree more!!!

Unknown said...

Very true. Good observations and valid points.

Rohan said...

hmm...it depends on what scenario you look at. stronger rupee..more expensive indian shirts in walmarts and jcpennys compared to pakistani, bangladeshi, nepali and sri lankan. in short...stronger rupee hurts our manufacturing exports more than it hurts IT. btw...conversion of dollar to chinese yuan is 1 to 7....probably changed now..also..I dont really buy stronger rupee = stronger economy...stronger rupee is because of increased demand in the local market...that is more people buying cars, houses, TVs...etc and also the fact that a weaker US economy has devalued the dollar...not many countries now benchmark dollar...but instead a handful of currencies like euro, yen etc...

just my thoughts!

Maverick said...

Couldnt agree more !. If not today when are we change ourselves and our thinking patterns . That is
1) Slave Master Pattern . We need to innovate . Lets combine efforts jai hind

Unknown said...

Well, not trying to be harsh over here. But, I do not buy that stronger rupee = stronger economy. Let's look at the currency rates for the last 15 years or so:

1990 => 16.9633 INR to 18.1272 INR
1991 => 18.339 INR to 25.818 INR
1992 => 25.8629 INR to 28.9786 INR
1993 => 29.0432 INR to 31.44 INR
1994 => 31.44 INR to 31.3894 INR
1995 => 31.3736 INR to 34.9663 INR
1996 => 35.8117 INR to 35.8815 INR
....
2006 => 44.2324 INR to 44.4781 INR
2007 => 44.2117 INR to 40.6274 INR

Just wonder, were we really a stronger economy than today in 1990s?

It's all about demand and supply.
Just put a slight control on the flow of USD in the market, this will create a demand for USD markets after all the whole import/export transactions are based on USDs. Once you have created the demand, the market will bump off to get the USD at competitive prices. Same is the case with any currency.

Anonymous said...

Good post.