An alternative export strategy

Instead of focusing on one over the other, India needs to view services and manufacturing as complementary, not exclusive activities

In a recent interview, Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has suggested that exports of information technology-enabled services (ITeS) along with professional services such as consultancy, legal, medicine, accounting should, instead of manufacturing, become the mainstay of India’s export strategy (The Wire, February 24).

While it is true that ITeS, software and consultancy services have accounted for a major proportion of India’s services exports in the past, and more significantly during the pandemic, a focus on these services as a growth driver for India’s exports (1) may, however, be misplaced. Given that professional services involve