2/16/2023

Investing or gambling in India

 Many states have invested in India and many have pulled out, crawled out with bruises all over them. Many western corporations too have gone in and out and made a lot of losses before calling it a day, knowing that the unfathomable rules and Indian ways of doing business are beyond them to comprehend and to make money from their investments. Indian laws are very watery and very flexible and very like the American's so called rules based order. There are laws and there are lawlessness depending on which side you are in.

But India is still very attractive in the long term. It still has a lot of room to grow, a lot of potential, a lot of people, a lot to build and improve. India has a lot of everything to those looking for opportunities to invest. Many see India as the next China and are willing to jump in as the first mover to reap big profit should India becomes the next China. India has many similarities with China and expecting India to be like China is a reasonable hope. Of course there are differences, especially in the culture and politics of India. And there is this great democracy that India boasts about, the greatest asset of India and also the biggest trap for foreign investors.

Modi has set 2030 for India to be a developed country. This is good news for all investors and believers. To achieve this goal, India must move very fast, must change very fast. The India of yester years would not do. China is lucky in a way, with a central govt that could make quick decisions and move things quickly, central planning and top down policies, something that a great democracy like India would be difficult to do. The Chinese people would accept top down decisions with lesser resistance. The Chinese culture of respecting authority, the central govt, are a plus which India would never be able to do.

For the optimists, there is always hope and a brighter future to look forward to. Investing in India is a long term process, and can be a very long term process, maybe a never ending process. There are many sink holes and quagmires in India that investors would have to navigate very carefully. Many of these are unpredictable but obvious and investors are wary of.

So far not many investors, private or state, have been successful investing in India. Have not heard of a foreign investor making it good in India. No success story to tell. Only Indian companies are successful with foreign capital, ie easy money. For individual or state investors, when the going is tough, keep going, keep throwing in more money and hoping for the best. To some, when too much have been sunk in India, it is a road of no return. It is like gambling in a sense. Pulling out is not an option as the losses are colossal and too frightening to tell. So just keep throwing more money into the bottomless pit and hope for the best, hoping that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.  If not, just stay invested and keep pretending that all is well and one day, not sure if that day will come, one day they will be able to recoup their massive losses.

Investing in India needs a lot of fat hope and a lot of money to lose. And it is really a long term investment, maybe for decades and generations to come, before one can see profit, if it ever comes. As long as one stays invested, as long as one has the money to keep investing, no one would know the losses.

India is a place where angels would not dare to tread. Only the exceptionally brilliants, or the hopefuls, or the gamblers, would dare to risk their money in India. Hopefully the money they risked is not their own money, but OPM. When OPM is concerned, just keep gambling and hoping, all will be fine in the long run, in the long, long run. If not, just run.

There is always the possibility that India would be another China in the long run. Modi's target is 2030, not very long to wait. If Indians can run all the top American companies, then Indians can surely turn India into like American companies. The US is a big democracy just like India. Only difference is that American democracy came after the country got rich from looting and stealing other people's land and resources and massacring the natives of the land. India is a democracy before it comes rich, and had its resources and wealth stolen by the likes of the Americans, ie the same AngloSaxon Brits. And also had its people massacred by the British.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows scale of Apple’s challenge:

'A 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced by an Indian company is a stark illustration of the difficulties Apple faces in reducing its dependence on China. Apple’s target for casings that fail to pass quality control is 0%, with Chinese suppliers reportedly getting extremely close to this.

The attitude of Indian suppliers is also said to compare poorly with the can-do approach of Chinese companies, with one former Apple engineer saying that there is no sense of urgency in its Indian supply chain …'

'Former Apple employees said that Chinese suppliers had a totally different attitude, aiming to exceed the Cupertino company’s expectations. On more than one occasion, they said, a Chinese supplier would be given a task expected to take several weeks, and would have it done literally the next day.'

'Tech entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa said that it will likely take three years or so for Indian suppliers to be capable of the kind of volume production needed to make a noticeable dent in Chinese production.'

Link to article:
https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/14/iphone-casings-produced-in-india/

Anonymous said...

Got cheated the first time, blame the cheat.

Got cheated the second time, blame yourself.

Got cheated the third time, blame stupidity.

Got cheated the fourth time, stupidity has no cure.

Anonymous said...

India biggest democratic country
Also the biggest prata country

Virgo49 said...

You want yo do businesses with India ah,

They are the World's most Protectonist Country that don't benefit them to their advantage You are out.

That's why they have a Saying " Calculate Indians Maths or Accounts"

So many Trade Agreements that they opted out not to their terms.

Only SinkiesLAND will gladly agreed to their Agreements as thought as have the hope of investing of big profits into their country

So in exchange you must allowed our citizens to have unlimited access to your Country's jobs and professions as we had so many millions unemployed here and then we shall allowed you suckers to so called invest into our country thinking of what's peoples said going to be a superpower enconmy.

Later we will know how to skin you with your greed of making fast bucks with much sweats like punting on casinos betting.

Little work and punt and hoped-for best that peoples will churned out the monies for you.

Anonymous said...

Apple tried producing Apple iPhones in India, but the Indians are helping Apple to produce Orange iphones instead.

Now, Apple is not the only company getting what it deserves. Japan and China tendered for the construction of high speed rails in India and Japan was selected for the project. But it turned out that the inability to get the contract was in fact a blessing in disguise for the Chinese. Why?

Japan found out the hard way that doing things in India is not as straight forward as they thought. Indians are famous for adding in conditions and varying contracts after they have been signed. In one instance, the Indians varied the conditions in the contract unilaterally, by insisting that the Japanese have to use Indian made steel for the construction, which the Japanese found out to be substandard. Of course someone had to give way eventually. Moreover, the Japanese are going to find plenty of complaints after the completion of the HSR, which is expected from the Indians and compensation will be asked for sure, in order to lower the price.

The other problem the Japanese found out too late was the difficulty of land acquisition from private owners for the rail construction by the Indian Government, which delayed the project and added to the cost. India is a democracy and getting things done is not as simple as in China. Bureaucracy and public opinion matters as Indian voters can be difficult to deal with, and the India Government had been known to have been forced to walk back on policy changes.

The reason China can move so fast and progress so well is the system that made moving forward so easy. There are no voters to hold the Government hostage. What took democratic countries years to move from planning stage to start of construction, the Chinese had probably already finished their projects and moving on. The HSR in Laos is an example, while the Indian HSR is still stuck midway over land rights. India had plans for HSR since the 1980 and not one line is complete with numerous still just under consideration.

Anonymous said...

The Hard Truth about Doing Bziness in Ah NehLand ~ Don't Mess Around With these Tongue Twisting buggers, They will make you crawl like shits!

Anonymous said...

https://www.brightworkresearch.com/does-indian-society-train-indians-to-be-cheat-and-lie/

Just 2 salient points from brightwork research :

To learn to cheat is to learn how to survive. If you don't, society will treat you as an imbecile who never grew up.

There are 2 categories of people, the exploited and the exploiter.
The working principle is this...if you don't exploit, then you will automatically become exploited.

Anonymous said...

https://www.brightworkresearch.com/does-indian-society-train-indians-to-be-cheat-and-lie/

Thank you Anon 1:31pm. Every Singaporean must read this site, especially those that are responsible for investing Singaporean money in India or those doing business with Indians.

Anonymous said...

Buy India stocks wear diamonds !

Virgo49 said...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/adani-powers-rs-7017-crore-deal-to-buy-db-power-assets-falls-through/articleshow/97969195.cms?UTM_Source=Google_Newsstand&UTM_Campaign=RSS_Feed&UTM_Medium=Referral

All hot Airs show offs.

Just like Dotard Trump

ex PMT said...

Every developing country was difficult to invest in the beginning. That's the reason why Singapore built industrial parks for manufacturing in Indonesia, Vietnam, China and elsewhere.
It was to make it easier for Foreign Companies to invest and operate. China understood what was important to those companies, and can now do it by itself without our help. I have seen 3rd world countries produce goods for MNCs which were 80% rejected in the beginning. Within 12 months, the reject rate fell to less than 10%, and within 18 months less than 5%.

Don't underestimate the capability of PMTs to organize successful working systems and address intermittent problems.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Welcome to the blog, ex PMT.

Virgo49 said...

https://vulcanpost.com/816918/will-gic-and-temasek-end-up-like-the-norwegian-pension-fund/