Opportunity In The Making! ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat'

With heightened nationalism being the current global trend in which every nation is attempting to safeguard its national interest, the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative by the Indian government sounds like a perfect solution, at least superficially, to become self-reliant in an extremely uncertain global economic environment. But what does it mean to equity investors who are bullish on the India story? Yogesh Supekar and Karan Bhojwani draw attention to the sectors which stand to benefit from this initiative while also focusing on sectors that will gain from the increasing angst against Chinese products

- Yogesh Supekar and Karan Bhojwani

When the first trickle of news of China’s incursion in Ladakh filtered in, a majority of Indians believed that it was not such a serious issue, assuming that as in the case of Dokhlam, the contentious face-off would be resolved amicably. But when the border tensions between India and China flared up, leaving at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, India was angered and maybe for the first time after many years resolved to boycott Chinese products. Whether it is possible to completely boycott these products or not is a different story altogether – the intention is to minimise dependency on China, it now being a matter of pride and honour.

There is no question that boycotting goods imported from China won’t be easy as both the economies are deeply intertwined. China is India’s biggest trading partner after the US apart from being the second-largest economy in the world with a GDP of about USD 13.6 trillion. China supplies industrial components and raw materials across various sectors in India and has lately been investing in India’s start-ups and technology firms. It is estimated that Chinese technology investors have parked an estimated USD 4 billion into Indian start-ups and as of March 2020, 10 out of India’s 30 unicorns are Chinese-funded.

Big Basket, BYJU’s, Delhivery, Dream 11, Flipkart, Hike, Make My Trip, OLA, Paytm Mall, Paytm, Policy Bazaar, Quikr, Rivigo, Snapdeal, Swiggy, Udaan and Zomato are some of the Indian start-ups that have Chinese investors. It is ascertained by Invest India that there are roughly 800 Chinese companies operational in India out of which approximately 75 have manufacturing facilities for smart phones, consumer appliances, construction equipment, automobiles, chemicals, power gear and optical fibre.