Doing business with South East Asia

Move over Europe and America, South East Asia is fast emerging as the hub for investment. This was the verdict at the Business Standard Smart Business panel discussion on ‘Doing Business with South East Asia’ organised in association with the Federation of Small and Medium Industries (FOSMI).

Goutam Sengupta, director, Videocon Infinity Infrastructure, explained the importance of the region with some statistics. "The South East Asian region is an economy of 600 million people with a GDP of $4 trillion. It's the seventh largest economy in the world, and by 2050, is expected to be the fourth largest. In the World Bank rankings for Ease of Doing Business in 2015, Singapore ranked first, Malaysia 18, Thailand 49 and Vietnam 19. MSMEs have to see where they can fit in," he said.

Sushim Banerjee, Director General, Institute for Steel Development and Growth, echoed his views. "The global trade volume is declining but the share of South East Asian countries is growing, which is why India should target the region. All these countries are trying to add manufacturing capacity in items where India has some strength," he said.

Biswanath Bhattacharya, president, FOSMI, said that the perception towards India was changing. "There is an opportunity for MSMEs," he said.

However, there were challenges alongside. "There are professionally qualified people that India can export but that is impeded by non-recognition of professional degrees," Banerjee said.

Sengupta pointed out that in the corruption perception index, while Singapore and Malaysia scored high, other countries in the region like Thailand and Philippines scored low.