Tough market to crack
Apropos of the news report “Why global carmakers like Renault, Nissan are reviewing their India strategy” (FE, August 27), leading global carmakers are reviewing their blueprint for India to boost sales and avoid more painful cutbacks, after struggling to win over consumers even as the market swings to growth. This was coming. Take Volkswagen. The day it entered India, Volkswagen made huge claims of creating a very strong presence in the country and the company was confident it will be able to give a stiff challenge to Maruti and Hyundai. Primarily because Volkswagen had taken a leadership position in China, a market supposed to be like India. However, that was not to be. Today, a decade later, Volkswagen is still trying to get hold of the Indian market. Similar is the case with General Motors, Nissan Motor and Renault, which have, over the past few weeks, announced hundreds of job losses. Clearly, India is not among the easy markets in the world to crack, as Guillaume Sicard, president of Nissan India, puts it. While the Indian car market is showing signs of recovery—after a return to growth in the year to March 2015, this year every month has seen sales improving—but the benefit is being felt mainly by Maruti, Hyundai and, of late, Honda—essentially those that have established a pan-India presence. One of the world’s largest car markets is not easy to crack even for the world’s biggest auto companies.
Naresh Puri
Ludhiana
GST’s frustrating delay
Apropos of the story “Narendra Modi must talk directly to Sonia Gandhi to pass the GST Bill” (FE, August 26), it must be said that GST has fallen into serious trouble. The suggestion of calling upon the PM to talk directly to the leader of largest opposition party stems out from the dire need to free the economy from the mess of cumbersome indirect taxes that have caused not only huge revenue losses, distorted prices of goods & services but also put irksome compliance cost on the taxpayers. Interestingly, almost all political parties accept the merit of GST as the best possible substitute to create a truly common market in the country. If implemented properly, its quality of neutrality and efficiency are unquestionable. It also would significantly add to the GDP of the country. However, sadly, on the basic design, sharper differences are eluding consensus. One might justify it as a tribute to normal robust democratic process of governance we are all legitimately proud of. That said, it cannot be denied that the awful delay in introducing the country’s historical tax reform is tending to be frustrating so much so that some tax experts are reconciled to begin with even half-baked GST.
TR Rustagi
New Delhi
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