India: poised for greatness.(Scan)

Let's imagine two developing countries: Country "A" has spent the last two decades abandoning socialist autarky, embracing the free market, and dramatically reducing poverty. It appears poised to double its middle class over the next ten years from 300 million to a whopping 600 million, a huge potential market for U.S. exports. It is the world's most populous democracy.

Country "B" on the other hand, has the highest industrial and agricultural tariffs in the developing world. Though it has one fifth of the world's population, it accounts for less than one twentieth of global industrial output. Corruption and inefficiency are rampant, and the U.S. has carried a large trade deficit with this country for the past several years. Americans fear its large pool of well-educated, low-wage workers will sap jobs from the U.S. economy, and a vaguely anti-business party has just come to power in "B's" parliament.

With which of these countries should the U.S. increase trade? The answer is both, for they are the same country: India. The question now is whether India will continue to evolve in direction "A," or regress toward "B."

Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Ashley Willis, Indian entrepreneur Anand Mahindra, and T. N. Ninan, publisher of an Indian business newspaper, reviewed the great strides made recently by India at a recent conference at the American Enterprise Institute. Mahindra noted that within the past few years India has gone from adding a mere 100,000 new telephone connections per year to more than 2 million per month. Turnaround speeds in Indian ports have doubled. ...