An insight into Indias tough but fair negotiator

An insight into Indias tough but fair negotiator

Senior columnist Ashok Malik delves into what makes one of India′s most dynamic ministers, Nirmala Sitharaman, ideal for the commerce and industries portfolio. As India's commerce and industry minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has two major mandates. The first is to promote Make in India, a programme of enhancing the role of manufacture in India's economy and integrating India with global supply chains. The second is to give political support to India's trade negotiators in a time when protectionism and “plurilateralism” are threatening the global trade order. Even Western countries that have long espoused liberal trade regimes are turning their backs on these. These twin imperatives may appear to be sometimes contradictory, especially in a troubled world economy. Yet, Sitharaman has taken to her task with characteristic determination and rigour, the very qualities she brought to her role as BJP spokesperson in the years leading up to the 2014 general election campaign, when she emerged as one of the party's most articulate and thoughtful voices on policy matters. For those who have known her long, Sitharaman's performance would not be a surprise. Before she came into public life, she had a rich professional background. As an academic, she submitted a thesis on India-Europe textile trade within the GATT framework. Later, she was part of the then Price Waterhouse research unit in London, working on transferring western audit systems to post-Cold War Eastern Europe. In the 1990s she returned to Hyderabad with her economist husband to set up a public policy institute and gradually gravitated towards the BJP. It was this CV that impressed Prime Minister Narendra Modi enough to give Sitharaman the commerce and industry ministries, which had been under political veterans in the previous Congress-led government. It was not easy for Sitharaman as her rivals sought to attack her and rattle her in Parliament, especially as she took tough positions in the World Trade Organisation to protect Indian farmers. The issue of subsidies to India farmers is often exaggerated and deliberately misinterpreted by Western trade negotiators, ignoring the giveaways and preferential treatment to farmers in Europe and the United States. This debate threw up an early challenge for Sitharaman but, backed by her prime minister and bolstered by her convictions, she battled on. In time, she has come to be recognised as a tough but fair trade negotiator, and is hoping to help conclude the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) involving the ASEAN bloc and the six economies with which ASEAN already has FTAs. While Sitharaman has been determined to negotiate or re-negotiate FTAs to suit India's interests, she has been equally zealous in throwing up Indian market opportunities to genuine investors. From defence hardware manufacture to single-brand retail, she has presided over, as industry minister, the most active phase of opening India's economy to foreign direct investment (FDI) since 1991. Indeed, as both she and her prime minister have often said, India is the major economy that is perhaps most open to FDI today. As the FDI numbers tot up, the value of what Sitharaman has achieved will start to become even more obvious.

Ashok Malik, Senior Columnist

Related Stories

No stories found.

Podcast

No stories found.

Defence bulletin

No stories found.

The power of the quad

No stories found.

Videos

No stories found.

Women Leaders

No stories found.
India Global Business
www.indiaglobalbusiness.com