With GST, ability to move goods has become simpler: Rajesh Subramaniam

He also said Indians have proved themselves assets across the world

Rajesh Subramaniam took the corner office of logistics major FedEx in February. He is one of the many Indians who have successfully climbed the corporate ladder in US. Subramanian discusses global trade, effects of protectionism and what India needs to do to make itself more business friendly with Arindam Majumder. Edited excerpts:

The air freight industry is going through a slowdown. Does that concern you?

Over the past 50 years, trade has grown faster than GDP. So, air cargo has grown faster than air freight and air express has grown faster than air cargo.

This is happening because the high value goods in an economy is growing faster and some of them are crossing national borders faster than before. So, this is the broad trend. There might be individual years of ups and down in some region during some period but I don’t expect the trend to change in the near term. As far as India is concerned, the per capita income of this country continues to increase. The GDP continues to increase. This phenomenon will continue. I feel very optimistic about the future of India.

Incidents of geopolitical tensions are increasing across the world. The prevalent idea of free trade across the world is being challenged. What impact does it have on an industry like yours?

FedEx unequivocally supports free trade. We believe it’s better for the business, even better for the consumers. More open the border, the better. We understand the realities of the world scenario and we adjust accordingly. We move 15 million shipments every single day and it’s a referendum on the idea of global trade that we see every day. We have the vast infrastructure in place and we are always to take opportunity of free trade.

Even as you are bullish on Indian economy, it seems that FedEx hasn’t taken the country as seriously as it should have which has helped your competitors to make inroads. Will that change with you as the president?

FedEx has been in India since 1994. When we look at our India business, you have to separate out two things — first is India’s export and import. When you look at that, we have 23 flights per week. We fly out of three gateways- Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. So we have a very robust infra. In this respect, if not the leader we are very close to that. Second is the intra India aspect. In that space, we have made two acquisitions in the past few years. One is air freight company PAFEX in 2007, other being logistics and distribution business of AFL in 2016. We have now completed the integration of these companies into FedEx. Then we acquired TNT Express. Now we have a very robust portfolio of services in the intra India market. We have international express, we have freight forwarding, air and ocean forwarding, supply chain business, intra India truck business. So now we are suited to have a plethora of business which we didn’t have a few years ago. As the market grows, we are ideally suited to take advantage of that.

A lot of Indians who made careers in the American corporate houses have successfully climbed the ladder to take the corner room of those firms. You are one of them. So how do people like you reflect on India when you reach those positions?

I have thought about a little. I think from the timing perspective, these people have really proved themselves and has climbed the seniority level. The educational background, the training, more importantly the mind-set to adapt and change- I think these features are common among all those who are becoming CEOs now. Not only that baring those there are others Indians who have made themselves an asset of the organisation. It’s just the top talent finds the way and reach the top of the organisations.

India’s booming status as a business hub is marred by the infrastructure bottlenecks this country faces. Your views on that?

Of course infra is important. Improving the airport infra is very important — the ability to handle more planes and move the cargos seamlessly at the airport. Soft infra like the ability to clear customs. India has done remarkable work in soft infrastructure. With implementation of GST, the ability to move goods has become faster and simpler. So as manufacturing becomes part of India’s economy what needs to happen is that the cost of logistics will have to come down.