For a decade now people have been telling me to invest in China. You know the reasons: cheap labor, tremendous growth, regulators that are often willing to wink and nod and look the other way. It all adds up to profit. Or at least it would, if it were all true anymore.
China has slowly become less and less attractive to investors – especially if they’re involved exporting what they make in China back to Europe or the US. The ongoing controversy over the value of the Chinese Yuan means that there’s a built in uncertainty about what the products on your assembly line today will be worth in dollars or Euros next month.
One solution is to call India. The business climate in India has improved in the past few years as India tries to compete with China. BusinessWeek ran a piece recently about how India is developing the image or a “soft” power in the region – strong, but not as demanding as China. Many other countries in the region see that as attractive.
And on top of that, India is developing the characteristics China had a decade ago: cheap labor and strong growth.