After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has suffered a lot, especially in the sphere of trade and commerce. All movement ceased to exist, travelling, importing, and exporting were also restricted to control the spread of the deadly virus. It also affected the economy of many nations, including India. It’s been almost two months of lockdown, and restrictions on trade and commerce are affecting our economy.
On May 14, 2020, PM Modi, while addressing the citizens of India, motivated everyone to become self-reliant and use local brands and local products to make the products manufactured by us more popular worldwide.
Just Like LPG Did In 1991, The ‘Vocal About Local Initiative’ Could Boost India’s Economy
His speech also focused on the importance of the local market, manufacturing units, and local supply chain. All these helped us to get our essentials and non-essential products during the pandemic. Local markets fulfilled all demands. PM Modi also urged the citizens to be “Vocal about Local” products and help them become global.
Take the example of LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation, & Globalization) in 1991. Before this, our economy was not in a stable position but after the introduction of LPG, our country witnessed a high economic growth record from 1991 to 2000. The import-export business has given us a lot of benefits. It changed the shape of our nation’s financial condition, as it allowed our country to make foreign technology agreements, increased foreign investment, tax reforms, and overseas trades.
In my opinion, Modiji’s idea of ‘Global to Local’ is a great initiative to motivate people to buy more products from the local market. Still, it comes with a lot of loopholes, and if we are buying products from a farmer, only the poor will get the benefits of this policy. If we are buying that same local product from the supermarket, then the poor farmer doesn’t get the chance to get all the benefits because of the involvement of several intermediaries.
Low quality of products and less competition will affect the quantity and quality of the products and so on. India doesn’t have the capacity to produce every product; we have to rely on others for some products such as petrol, and certain machinery equipment.
Many International Brands Manufacture Majority Of Products In India
The largest furniture brand, IKEA has been sourcing from India for the past 35 years, and the CEO of the company said that it would continue sourcing from India to make a positive impact on our economy. Unilever, Colgate, Sony, LG, Samsung, and Xiaomi are some of those MNCs that manufacture almost 90% of their products in India.
It can be observed that in many aspects, global brands dominate the local market, and in addition to this, we don’t have that many local alternatives. Many multinational companies have already established their manufacturing units in India. They are producing substantial benefits from our country, so our prime minister’s ‘Global to Local’ initiative will hardly affect their business.
Pursuing this further, we are so much conditioned to buy these foreign brands that it will be challenging for us to shift our market from Global to Local. If 50% of the population is willing to buy local products, we don’t have enough manufacturing units to support the demand, nor do we have that many workers to fulfill the demand.
But at the same time, as the example presented by Modi before this pandemic, India was not producing PPE kits and was producing the N-95 masks in a minimal quantity. But after the outbreak of the Corona Virus, we are delivering 2lakh PPE kits and N-95 masks, which is indeed a great achievement in itself.
By Going From ‘Global To Local’, We Will Become Self-Reliant As A Nation
On the brighter side of this ‘Global to Local’ policy, it will help boost our economy and will create a lot of jobs as our resources and manpower will be used, and to some extent, it will protect and preserve our culture and originality also. We should take this as an opportunity to grow. By urging people to become vocal about local, he is not rejecting the whole concept of globalization; instead, he is telling us to take advantage of this situation by developing our economy.
While comparing the COVID 19 pandemic with the Spanish flu of 1918, we will see a lot of similarities between these two disease outbreaks. When we see the aftermath of the Spanish flu, after the end of that pandemic, the economic transactions and the manufacturing units started booming, and the country got the chance to revive its lost economy. We are expecting to face a similar situation at present.
If we are prepared with our popularized local brands, it will attract investors of other countries, benefiting India in the near future. In conclusion, this initiative of going from ‘Global to Local’ to make people self-reliant is an excellent way to make people realize their potentials and efficiencies. It ultimately depends on how we are accepting and promoting this, only then will it show good results.