By Priyanka Dey
Edited by Anandita Malhotra, Senior Editor, The Indian Economist
Asia has emerged as the most potential region in the past decade. The regional block of ASEAN seems to be the epic centre of new demographics for the world economy. The world economic outlook 2014 broadly talks about the Asian super powers and their potential economic growth in the future. ASEAN as a regional block is proving to be better equipped and formalized as compared to the predecessor the European Union. Also, countries in Asia have been firming up their inventiveness for economic corporations, namely, free trade agreements (FTA)/economic partnership agreements (EPA). A proportion of fresh enthusiasm has been emerging in Asia remarkably from 2005. The Asian bilateralism also considers this geographical area as a vital evolutionary track. A lot of the markets are yet developing and thus contain fair amount of potential for expansion.
The India Japan FTA is one of the important bilateral agreements of the region. The journey concluding which in 2010 was started in January 2005. Apart from being major players in Asia these two countries share strategic intentions and common ideologies in democracy, human rights and a market economy. Japan has the second largest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world and India has the tenth largest. A strong economic growth of India is predicted in the long-run and there are fair positive instincts for the country to become an economic power. Against this backdrop, both countries are expected to become the driving forces for further prosperity in Asia.
The Japanese and Indian economies are natural compliments to each other. In India there is an abundance of labour. There is a potential amount of upliftment in the skilled labour base and also the consumer base. The rising middle class attracts foreign business for market expansions. In Japan we see an advancement in capital segment of inputs present. Japan has advantages in terms of capital, technological skills, and product development. The fastest growing IT sector of India expects a strong support from the Japanese hardware industry. A part from trade and investment issue Japan is forecasted to provide support at the health, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics etc. These segments of technology are fairly new in India and with this cooperation with Japan, Indian knowledge and expertise can increase. Japan and India are captain energy consuming nations in Asia, so acquiring a steady source of energy sources, advancement of energy-saving, and enhancement of energy efficiency are serious policy outlines that has straight linkage to the economic development in both countries. The other similarity being concerns over environmental hazards provides innovation from globally acclaimed technology and environmental sustainability.
However, there are many things to watch out for in this alliance as it has a few setbacks too. The Nuclear deal has been fairly shelved in the last attempts of strengthening the relationship. Even with the complimentary structure of advantages, Japan is an economically developed country whose economy and is well equipped to grab the Indian market swiftly whereas the Indian business and management are not equipped to handle the same. It is also anticipated that Indo-Japan relationship can spill water over the struggle and growing segments by bringing in giant fishes.
Priyanka is passionate for love , economics , dance, fashion and living life . She builds her life in hope of inspirations. For her bringing change is the cause of our existence and every step that one takes changes assumptions for the superstructure . It gives her pleasure in deconstructing anything and everything . Accordung to her we all know what we actually want and eventually achieve that and the rest that comes in the path is just knowledge creation.