Is “made in India” and “Buy from India” same?
Made in India and Buy from India are very similar to one another. However, the concept is understood with more clarity based upon the responsibility of the seller and the buyer.
From a seller’s standpoint the concept of “Made in India” is very important not just because it creates Pride and Honour of one’s own country (that ofcoz is) but also of the fact that when a seller chooses to sell Indian made products, he is indirectly helping the Indian economy to bloom and flourish which will also help him monetarily too.
- Short term gain v/s Long term gain
For certain products and like Shoes, clothing etc (not just electronic items) which are readily available over Multinational E-commerce sites in India, a major chunk of the products are imported from India’s neighboring non-democratic country. This is because that Country has built its machine infrastructure (over a period of time) capable of producing large quantities in less time and resources. This overall reduces the costing of the product at the bulk.
The sellers buy the above products and sell at a good profit initially with no future vision of their sales. The seller is not really concerned about the manufacturing and all he needs is the constant supply of the merchandise at low cost, so that he can sell more and more with the particular margin.
At a granular level this effect is negligible but at a larger level, over a period of time, this action creates a long term vicious cycle which hurts the Indian economy in the long run.
Where Indian production and manufacturing gets hurt, Blue collar Jobs are not created and thus creates unemployment issues reducing the buying power of the local population. Now, when Jobs are less within the country, these sellers who mostly depend upon the local population to sell its products, face the issue of Lack of Sales.
These sellers are indirectly sending the Indian currency in large quantities outside India which is not helping them in the return sales.
- Import Duties:
Import duties are the tax levied on the import of finished products from a foreign country. Though duties are paid in the importing of products benefiting the importing country, but such import only increases the cost of the product and does nothing directly in skill development of the local population to earn more overall increasing the Buying power.
- Make in India builds Military Strength:
Defence sector of a country determines the overall bargaining capacity of a Nation.
Defense is just one sector which depends wholly on the economic strength of a Nation. A strong defense can not only protect the nation from external threats but also dominate price and commodity wars indirectly. Foreg. Natural resources like Lithium or Oil is only imported from other countries. And starting an extracting company in a foreign country or Logistics through Waterways needs Defending Army & Naval strength to protect Trade routes and production in and through unfamiliar territory.
For e.g China has huge influence over African continent solely for natural resources and USA has military base in Iraq for defending its Oil companies, etc.
- Make in India and Exports
Export is equally important and that depends a lot on local sales within the territory. The Higher the export, higher is the gross income of the local producers which in turn increases the buying power of the local people. This buying power again transpires into more sales thereby helping the sellers.
- Infrastructure: to build Manufacturing units
A lot has been said against the infrastructure capabilities of India where it doesn’t have the necessary resources or infrastructure to produce high quality electronic items like Mobile phones or Laptops, etc.
Here again the entire electronic item like Mobile phone can be broken down into hardware components like Processor, Backpanel, screen, mini camera, minute wires, chips, chargers.
Where processors and chips are difficult to be produced within India, simple stuffs like Backpanel, screen, chargers and wires can still be manufactured in India. And with the passage of time, all the other component manufacturing can also be acquired.
- Conclusion
Hence, “Made in India” and “Buy from India” are equally dependent on each other and a deficit in one of them hurts both the sellers and the buyers in the long run. And efforts should be made to promote both to empower the Indian economy.