Doing Business in India – Nicola Watkinson Transcript
Hello, Welcome to this Austrade podcast and welcome to India!
My name is Nicola Watkinson and I am the Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner for South
Asia.
I would like to take a few moments to tell you about the development of the Indian market,
the opportunities that we see developing for Australian business and how you can tap into
the potential of this growing market.
The Indian Economy is growing at 7 to 7 ½% per annum. There are a number of good reasons
for that growth.
One is Consumerism with the burgeoning middle class of over 300 million many of whom have
worked or studied overseas and want to bring that part of that international experience
into India. Another great cause (opportunity) is the investment in infrastructure across
power, road, education and health. And the third area is the drive by the Indian Government
to improve the international competitiveness of the Indian businesses thru strategies such
as Make in India and Digital India.
All of these areas offer a wealth of opportunity for Australian businesses.
So let’s explore some of those opportunities in a lit bit more detail. Austrade has an
extensive network of offices throughout India and we have done a lot of research into where
the best opportunities for Australian business lie. These fold into 3 major groupings. One
is consumerism focusing on premium food and wine, on sport and on tourism. The second
is around capability in areas such as vocational education and training, and water management.
And the third is around capacity looking at sectors such as the mining equipment, freight
rail and road safety. All of these areas offer huge potential for Australian business. So
let’s explore them in a little bit more detail.
The Indian market for imported foods is growing at over 30% a year with wine, dairy, pasta
and sauces and chocolate being some of the fastest growing product categories. In fact,
India has become the fastest growing chocolate market in the world. And I am not taking sole
responsibility for that.
Another area of opportunity is e-commerce. In India over 65 million people are visiting
some of the top 3 e-commerce websites each month and that is growing over 30% a year.
Some companies like Flipkart and Amazon are already starting to look at the Australian
market to see what products they can source from Australia. That is in the areas of things
like the food and wine area but also in areas such as fashion. These opens up a whole new
area of opportunity for our small and medium sized businesses looking to enter the Indian
marketplace.
Over 20 million Indians enter the workforce every year that’s nearly the population
of Australia and this is placing huge demands for vocational education and training here
in the Indian market. Austrade has been working to identify ways in which Australian institutions
can get the right balance of price, quality and volume to meet the needs of the Indian
market. We are starting to see a number of institutions such as The Australian Retail
College, Deakin University and SEDA really growing and succeeding in the market place.
And this is an exciting area of opportunity both to service that have workers who are
going to stay and work here in India as well as looking at the transnational education
market for many of the Indian workers seeking opportunities in regional markets like the
Middle East.
The Indian Government has set an ambitious target of increasing the level of manufacturing
in India from 15 to 22% of GDP. In order to do that, Indian businesses are going to have
become more internationally competitive. Australia has world-class expertise in ICT, Life Sciences,
Agri-Tech and Advanced Manufacturing & materials that can help India to succeed in its goal.
Already we have seen companies coming into the market to take advantage of what Australia
has to offer and we see this as an enormous opportunity for Australian technology and
research institutes with commercial ready solutions that are looking for industrial
partners and a way into the global value chain.
There are over 200,000 Indians already visiting Australia every year. But India is also keen
to grow its tourism from Australia and from around the world. One of its greatest assets
is its cultural heritage with over 32 UNESCO world heritage sites listed in India and 1000’s
more cultural assets that need to be explored by the International tourist. Many of those
need better conservation and better tourism interpretation and this is an area where Australia
has world-class capability to offer. We already have a number of groups such as Narrowcasters
and Sue Hodges Productions who are starting to come into the market to offer their services
and solutions and we see this is another area a strong opportunity for Australian business.
I hope that this short podcast has inspired you to look at the wealth of opportunities
in India. We in South Asia look forward to helping you to grow into the market place
and stand ready to answer any further enquiries you may have.