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Comment by infecto | Hacker News Reader

What concerns me the most is India. China has done a good job advancing its population through better jobs and education. India on the other hand has barely scratched the surface, no company wants to migrate manufacturing there and the coming generation has a high chance of lead poisoning their faculties since the government has done nothing to combat the tainted goods in the country.

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> no company wants to migrate manufacturing there

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/...

I don’t think that disproves much? They have been trying to move since 2017 and it’s been filled with nothing but troubles for them. I am sure it will happen as the cost of labor is cheap and they will be making US phones here without risk of Chinese tariffs.

India is a difficult challenge for most manufacturing operations, the government has done little to educate the population and pollution both in the air and food I fear will have a lasting impact. Some of the last reporting I saw had some insanely high number like 90% of tested children have lead poisoning. China has had their problems but they excelled at the growth stage.

It's optimism, mixed with getting some local (Indian) goodwill, mixed with pretending you diversified your production (while parts can still come from China), mixed with slow progress and mostly bad results

> India on the other hand has barely scratched the surface, no company wants to migrate manufacturing there

I don't think that's true. India has a large domestic market, high tariffs, and relatively low labor costs. It makes a lot of sense for products for the domestic market to be manufactured (or at least assembled) inside the country, and you see many manufacturers doing that. Some of them have success in manufacturing and go on to build for the export market in India; many have less success and accept the tariffs.

the problem is the power grid in India is terrible, and you still need to bribe people to get things done. i have family in manufacturing, they said the bribing isn't too much hassle but the power grid being so bad isn't worth the investment.

Having seen the rat-king level street wiring, I am not surprised.

> India … has barely scratched the surface

Completely untrue. Indian GDP per capita has more than 5xed since 2000.

And? They have a long way to go and have barely scratched the service. They have little manufacturing capabilities and at best is a service export which may work longer term with software engineers but I think is still questionable. Low literacy rates, low secondary enrollment rates, high pollution and most importantly in lots of the country lead poisoning in most kids as they taint their spices with lead.

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