Indias cities are encouraging manufacturing to promote growth

Published: Dec. 1, 2017, 12:55 a.m.

b'Urban areas contribute nearly two-thirds of India\\u2019s gross domestic product, even though they account for only 31 percent of the country\\u2019s population. They are India\\u2019s growth engines. \\n\\nMore remarkable is that India leapfrogged the manufacturing revolution and transitioned from agriculture to a service-based economy, with services now contributing 60 percent of GDP.\\n\\nIn 2014, the \\u201cMake in India\\u201d policy was launched to boost manufacturing. \\n\\nThe issue for local and foreign companies will be to identify comparative advantages of India\\u2019s cities, and which local and state governments attract investment and improve competitiveness by encouraging and protecting facilities for making and selling goods.\\n\\nGovernment knows that urbanization is important, and policies encourage new towns to grow around information technology, for example, or education or health. \\n\\nCluster development models and special economic zones are being discussed to promote manufacturing and industrial townships, which will bring firms together to share specialized infrastructure, labor markets, and services. \\n\\nRead the transcript\\nhttp://bit.ly/2j6m649\\n\\nRead the working paper\\nhttps://www.adb.org/publications/how-identify-specialization-india-cities\\n\\nAbout the author\\nKala Seetharam Sridhar is a professor at the Centre for Research in Urban Affairs, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India.\\n\\nKnow more about ADBI\\u2019s research on\\nIndia: http://bit.ly/2kcLIzH\\nManufacturing: http://bit.ly/2BnOCoQ'