Author: Amitendu Palit, NUS

Oil, gas and coal are three critical natural resources playing major roles in economic growth. All three are essential for augmenting manufacturing and services outputs and increasing national gross domestic product (GDP). Economic histories of China and India for the last two to three decades underline their increasing reliance on these fossil fuels for sustaining high economic growth. Given their current growth trajectories, which are not only high but also manufacturing and services intensive, there is little possibility of them reducing their dependence on these energy sources.

Both countries are in search of energy-efficient processes. However, achieving energy efficiency is not easy. Read more…

Author: Amitendu Palit, ISAS, National University of Singapore

Many view India’s expanding trade deficit with China as a serious concern. India’s trade deficit with Australia is also being cited as troublesome.

From a bilateral trade perspective, India-Australia trade is much less discussed than India-China trade. As two of the Asia-Pacific region’s largest economies, India and Australia are expected to have robust exchanges. Read more…

Author: Amitendu Palit, NUS

China and India are often perplexing to analysts. One of the best examples of such shared perplexity is over higher education. From the vantage point of western education service providers, China and India are typical cases of being ‘so near, yet so far’.

This need not be the case. Both China and India wish to expand their higher education sector. Both realise that government efforts alone are insufficient to match the growing demand for higher education. Read more…

Author: Amitendu Palit, ISAS, Singapore

Chinese and Indian demographies will be rather different three decades hence. What kind of economic outcomes are the differences expected to create?

With 1.4 billion and 1.2 billion people respectively, China and India currently account for 37 per cent of the world population. Thirty years later, they are expected to account for roughly the same share of world population. The overall numbers, however, hide some fundamental changes that will have occurred by then. Read more…

Author: Amitendu Palit, ISAS, NUS

Asia’s dense web of trade networks has intensified further in this year. Two major regional trade agreements came into force from January 1, 2010. The first of these was the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA). The second, also an FTA, but taking the form of a free trade agreement rather than a free trade area, now governs relations between India and ASEAN (IAFTA). Unfortunately for India, poor preparation for this agreement means that it will lose some of the profit that it might ordinarily have gained from this agreement.

What are the basic details of each agreement? Read more…

Author: Amitendu Palit, NUS

The aftermath of the financial crisis has opened a new can of worms for Asia. The region has to decide its degree of dependence on the non-Asian world. The decision is anything but easy.

Just about a decade ago, the Asian financial crisis had hit the region. The crisis saw the region responding in a collective manner; to figure out Asian solutions to Asian problems. Circumstantial imperatives led to a revival of Asian regionalism. A key driver of such regionalism was the disappointment with the quality of response from the West. Read more…

Author: Amitendu Palit, NUS

India did not look to the East for a long time. The best and brightest from India travelled to the West for learning and living and Indian business was far more comfortable looking West even during the days of tight control. Oddly enough, the US and Europe remained India’s largest trade partners, even during the committed years of rupee-rouble trade between India and the erstwhile Soviet Union. While the Cold War did not put an end to India’s economic ties with the West, despite expectations to the contrary, it saw India neglecting the East for a major part of the last century.

India’s neglect in favour of the West hurt its own economy more than the Eastern Asian region. Read more…