India lags behind China and Brazil due to lack of policy

However, the value of Indian exports is significantly lower than China’s. Rising imports of creative goods and services to India also indicate an emerging and vibrant domestic market. Today, quite unlike China, Brazil and the UK, India lacks an integrated policy framework for the books and publishing sector.

 

This is what two scholars, Abdul Shaban with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai and Filip Vermeylen with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam have argued in their paper published in the Economic & Political Weekly (16 May, 2015) issue.

 

The authors argue that in many developed countries, the production of cultural goods and services has become more important (at least in employment terms) than traditional industries such as mining and automobiles. The Creative Industries, therefore earn more and employ more people in London than financial services. In the UK, these industries contribute £55 billion gross value added—six times more than the automotive industry and nine times more than aerospace and pharmaceuticals.

 

The UNCTAD found that exports of creative goods and services were worth USD562 billion in 2008, a 14% annual growth over the 2000s. Of the total exports of the Creative Industries in 2008, creative goods constituted 69% and creative services 31%.

 

In their report, Abdul Shaban and Filip Vermeylen state that India and China have significant earnings from the export of creative goods. India’s total exports of Creative Industry goods were worth about USD 4.35 billion in 2003 and USD 25.85 billion in 2012, while China’s were USD 38.18 billion in 2003 and USD 151.18 billion in 2012. China had a higher value of exports in this sector than the UK, and the total value of exports from India surpassed the UK’s in 2012.

 

While China occupied the first rank in export value of creative goods in 2003 and 2012, India improved its rank from 12th in 2003 to fourth in 2012.

 

In 2012, besides China, the US and Germany had a higher value of exports of creative goods than India.

 

Second, India and China have significantly higher growth rates of exports of creative goods than the world level.

 

The annual average growth rates of exports from India and China are almost twice the global growth rate. Growth has also been significantly higher than that of the UK.

 

Thus, India and China are emerging countries in exports of creative goods. However, India’s value of exports of creative goods is considerably lower than China’s. The value of exports from India was only 16.8% (USD 4,349 million) of China’s total exports of creative goods (USD 38,180 million) in 2003, and 17.1% (USD 25,846 million) of China’s USD 151,182 million in 2012.

 

The annual average growth rate (0%) of Exports and Imports of Print Industry in the Creative Goods for 2003-12 for Indian and China provide a good insight.

 

 

 

INDIA
SECTOR	EXPORTS	IMPORTS
Publishing	14.1	10.9
Books	-2.7	11.6
Newspaper	16.8	7.4
Other printed material	9.6	14.3

 

CHINA
SECTOR	EXPORTS	IMPORTS
Publishing	17.8	14.9
Books	15.9	8.9
Newspaper	12.9	6.0
Other printed material	22.5	26.7

 

The authors feel, “India has huge potential in arts and crafts, performing arts, music, publishing, and cinema.” Today, India is ranked fifth among 82 countries in the Global Creativity Index 2010 (Martin Prosperity Institute 2011) while Brazil, China, and the UK are ranked 46, 58, 13, respectively.

 

However, a number of factors hold India back in this sector. They include (a) a lack of government support through holistic policy measures; (b) piracy and “shortfalls in the legislative framework” and partial “protection and enforcement of copyright” (c) social and cultural homogenisation promoted by some cultural and political organisations, even violently, though unity in diversity is celebrated at the political level; (d) bureaucratic inefficiency and the lack of cross-sectoral linkages; and (e) a lack of systematic collection and analysis of data to assess the size and contribution of all sectors of the economy.

 

As compared to India, both China and Brazil have very coherent policy frameworks, and have been leading in shaping creative sector at the global level.