Besides durable consumer goods, certain other industries registered high growth last year: process control instruments, materials handling equipment in conveyers, lifts, rubber chemicals etc. Personal computers are another growth industry like software. This reflects a shift in the pattern of industrial growth. Radio receivers and typewriters, perhaps also sewing machines, are sunset industries. But the shift has not been strong enough to lift industrial growth overall. The problem areas are still the basic industries (steel, fertilisers, aluminium, cement) and capital goods (dieselengines, electrical machinery, textile machinery, boilers, machine tools and so forth) which continue to suffer from lack of investment demand. The question is, why has investment demand flagged? Is it that with industrial licensing gone, investors (capitalists) do not know which way to turn, ferret out the growth areas, and identify the new technologies?

The question needs to be addressed by CII and other industry associations. As of now, industry seems to be waiting for infrastructure investment to rise; but this is contingent mainly on mega foreign investment which seems to be slow in coming in. Sure enough, a rise in infrastructure investment will create demand in many sectors (steel, cement, power equipment). But beyond this, entrepreneurs also need to get a hang of the changing pattern of industrialisation and where new investment will be export competitive.