The Hindu : Need for boosting knowedge industries stressed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 01, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Need for boosting knowedge industries stressed

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD June 30 . The past decade had seen some "tectonic'' shifts in the global economy and the atmosphere of business needs to be factored in by every business however big or small, said P.S. Rammohan Rao, Governor of Tamil Nadu, while addressing the Hyderabad Management Association at its 30th Annual Awards Function here on Sunday.

These shifts are the integration of more than 1.9 billion people into the global market as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the shift from natural resource-based industries to knowledge-based industries, the shift from single power domination of the market to multi polar markets and the shift in the nature of competition from niche markets to `head-to-head' clash.

The shift from natural resource-based industries to knowledge-based industries as the source of economic dominance had resulted in brain power moving to countries of higher wages while capital and manufacturing industries were moving towards low wage countries, Mr. Rao said.

In fact the breakdown of the isolation of the Soviet Union and its allies and the change to knowledge-based industries, which were relatively location independent, had laid the basis for the emergence of the global economy.

Continuing his analysis, Mr. Rao said that with brain power becoming the main source for wealth creation and providing the cutting edge to almost all the emerging industries, the notions of `comparative advantage', which were important considerations of economic policy in natural resource-based manufacturing industries context, were becoming irrelevant.

He said that India, even though it was natural resource rich, had not been able to make full use of its resources in the previous economic condition, and it was necessary that the present initiative in knowledge-based industries, whether computers or biotech, should be encouraged.

Mr. Rao said that to provide a firm basis to this emerging knowledge industry, massive investment in education, skill development and R&D were necessary from both the private sector and the Government. Earlier, Mr. Rao presented the annual awards of the Association.

K. Jayachandra Reddy, Chairman, Press Council of India, was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award, J.C. Mohanty, Managing Director, AP State Finance Corporation, was presented the Manager of the Year Award, Y.V.S.S. Murthy, Vice Chairman, Alkali Metals Ltd was presented Entrepreneur of the Year Award, R.K. Agrawal, Managing Director, Nakoda Chemical Ltd was presented the Small Scale Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and V. Chandrashekhar, Head, S-Governance, Tata Consultancy Ltd, was presented the IT Professional of the Year Award.

B.L. Maheshwari, Chairman, Centre for Organisation Development, delivered the keynote address on "Learning from Failure'' where he spoke about the need to analyse the causes of failure and the ways to deal with it.

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