Import curbs will make goods costly

Maruti chief calls for capacity building If the imports are non-essential products, then they will not hurt us, but if they are essential, then stopping imports will hurt us much more than it will hurt China — R. C. Bhargava

Shunning products from China may lead to an increase in prices of consumer goods and vehicles. Instead India should heavily invest, build up capacities and be competitive globally to be a strong and prosperous industrialised economy, feels the chief of India's largest carmaker.

"We need to make our manufacturing much more competitive by investing heavily and build up capacities to be able to be competitive globally," R. C. Bhargava, chairman at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd told Financial Chronicle. not import those products," Bhargava pointed out.

He said competitive manufacturing requires the continuation of cost reduction. Policies should encourage better quality production and here the supply chain, which has a large number of SMEs, becomes very relevant. "Each one of them has to be globally competitive. Existing policies don't work in this direction. Competitiveness requires attaining economies of scale to global levels," Bhargava said.

He also said one has to understand whether stopping import will hurt or benefit the country.

"If the imports are nonessential products, then they will not hurt us, but if they are essential then stopping imports will hurt us much more than it will hurt China. You have to see what is the import, what does it do to our whole industry, whether stopping imports is going to hurt us or benefit us," he said.

Ultimately, it is the consumer who pays for the products, he cautioned.