A Diagnostic Approach to IPR Landscape for Competitive India

Abstract

With the shift in policy focus from service driven to manufacturing led economy-initiated by the flagship agenda of ,,Make in India", the new era of economic reforms requires equilibrium of growth and global competitiveness. Empirical researches have proved that growth and global competiveness go hand in glove. Unfortunately, India is enjoying a relatively lower global competitiveness i~dex (GCI) measured by World Economic Forum (WEF) despite consistently good growth figure. GCI over the last ten years has posed a serious question before the policy planners to devise a set of reforms in manufacturing sector for achieving balanced growth and improving competiveness ranking. The countries enjoying higher rankings on competitiveness index are better off in manufacturing leverage. For making an economy globally competitive, protection of IP Rs is a necessary precondition. During the last ten years or so, Indian GERD to GDP has been only 0.9% Research and Development (R&D) which is targeted at 2% by the government. The Chinese GERD witnessed a dramatic increase from one per cent to 1.84 per cent of GDP during the last decade. In 2012, Japan spent 3.26 per cent, South Korea 3.74 per cent, and Singapore 2.8 per cent. The present paper is an exploratory paper based on the dissection of literature available including reports of national and international organizations, government publications, working papers, research papers, research studies of established public, government and private research organizations and data available in public domain. The synthesis among major reflectors of competitiveness, parameters of manufacturing and IPR policy diagnosis has been developed using secondary data. Based on the review of empirical, theoretical and anecdotal researches, a suggestive framework for introducing reforms in IPR landscape is proposed with the intent of making India a globally competitive economy with favourable trade balance and innovations. The core concept of this proposed J,-amework is minimizing the demand-supply imbalances in IPR by making suitable policy interventions in investment, knowledge based productivity, productive livelihood, skilling and trade.