How did the idea of writing this book come to you?When I was growing up in Mumbai in the 1980s and 1990s, the Shiv Sena was growing into a major political phenomenon. It drew attention to itself with its violent tactics, and its leader, Bal Thackeray, came across as someone who was colourful, charismatic and highly controversial. That he evoked extreme emotions — some people liked him, others loved to hate him — and was the de facto ruler of India’s commercial capital regardless of who was in power created a lot of curiosity in my mind about him and his party. But when, as someone deeply interested in public affairs, I set out to study this phenomenon, I found there was a serious shortage of material about it. The Sena had had a very controversial time since its founding in 1966, but there was no history of the party written in English, and the story of its leader wasn’t well-documented either. I thought such a significant chapter in contemporary Indian history, a chapter that changed Mumbai, Maharashtra, and Hindutva politics in the country forever, ought to be recorded, examined and analysed. How difficult was it to put the book together? What was the kind of interviews and research you had to undertake while writing this book?I interviewed all the top Shiv Sena leaders and also leaders of rival parties who had taken on the Sena. Bal Thackeray and his party evoke strong reactions, both for and against, and it was necessary to get all versions of the story. Plus, I went through newspapers and periodicals of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Going through the dusty old files was a remarkably enriching and educative experience. Bal Thackeray & The Rise Of The Shiv Sena By Vaibhav PurandareRoli Books Pages: 288Price: Rs 350You have written biographies so far. Does a career as a journalist offer an advantage in writing non-fiction/biographies? Journalism is the first draft, but it does prepare you to write the later drafts that are history. It also helps that as a journalist, you are constantly engaged with current affairs. In addition, journalism teaches you how to make a subject easily accessible to the reader. Tell us a bit about your writing habits. When and where do you write?Writing is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration. I juggle my career as a journalist with my writing career, so I work on my books in the time I get out of the workplace. Which doesn’t mean too much time, but then if you have got to do something, you have got to do it. What’s your energy drink?It’s so non-alcoholic that some people are saying that without alcoholic content in it, I would remain ‘incomplete’ as a writer. What makes a book a really good read or a bestseller?A book must engage the reader, draw him or her in, make him/her interested in the story that’s being told and be crisp and comprehensive at the same time. What's the hardest thing about being a writer?Writing! How did you find a publisher for your (first) book? From manuscript to printed format...I called up a publisher and said I had written a book on so-and-so. Fortunately, the first one I called was happy with the manuscript and said yes. What are you reading now?Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (It has nothing to do with the fact that the writer’s last name happens to be spelt in the same way that the subject-matter of my book).(Compiled by Sanjitha Rao Chaini)businessworldbooks (at) gmail (dot) com
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Thin trading volumes, an irritably slow website and “linking problems” at the broker-end marred the gala opening week of MCX-SX, the country’s newest stock exchange. The exchange, which commenced trading on February 11, could only log volumes worth Rs 47.20 crore in the first week.MCX-SX has also not disclosed the ‘level’ of its flagship index SX – 40, starting rumours that the exchange is still not fully operational for regular, high-volume trading. According to sources, MCX-SX has not started disclosing the level of its flagship index as it has failed to attract trades in all the 40 ‘indexed’ stocks.MCX-SX officials did not give specific comments, but said, they hoped to attract volumes over a longer period of time through “innovation and re-inventing” itself. “Innovation is the only constant and also the reason behind the success of any industry, institution or brands. Exchanges are no exception. In the past, Sensex was a very popular index but later it was Nifty that created volumes,” said an MCX-SX spokesperson.In its bid to raise volumes, the exchange has decided to introduce ‘Liquidity Enhancement Scheme’ (LES) in its equity and equity derivatives segments with effect from March 6. As per the scheme, the market maker performing up to 90 per cent of their obligation during the month in 25 securities will be entitled to receive an additional incentive of Rs 21 lakh per month and in case he performs similarly in 40 securities, the member would be entitled to receive an additional incentive of Rs 50 lakhs per month. Also, all passive orders will entitle the member and even investor to receive about 50 per cent of the transaction cost received by the exchange from the active order.Brokers expect LES to be popular among jobbers and other intra-day traders. “Their incentive scheme is quite good… It will attract a lot of small-time brokers. Also, MCX-SX has done a smart thing by extending the facility to even passive orders. This may increase the number of quotes on the exchange,” the broker told BW on conditions of anonymity.According to market experts, MCX-SX is witnessing lukewarm response as they have not managed to formally list companies on the trading boards. As per exchange data, 1,116 companies have been admitted for trading under ‘permitted to trade’ category.“National Stock Exchange had 135 companies listed on it in its first year of its operations. However, it had another 543 companies under the ‘permitted’ to trade category. By 2005-06, NSE had over 1,069 listed firms and none under the permitted category. We intend to take much less time to start listing on our platform,” the exchange spokesperson said.“The exchange intends to approach companies after the formal inauguration,” MCX-SX chief executive Joseph Massey had told media prior to the formal launch.Apart from that, MCX-SX has only managed to empanel about 405 brokers at the time of launch. Most brokers BW spoke to are willing to “give more time” for the exchange to gain trading volumes and investor participation.“It is too early to pass a verdict on MCX-SX. They’ll be able to garner respectable market-share if they are able to innovate on the basis of product and technology,” said Motilal Oswal, CMD of Motilal Oswal Financial Services.As a direct impact, market-watchers expect the cost of transactions to come down once the third exchange becomes fully operational with significant volumes. “Investors will benefit in overall terms. The new exchange will push down trading costs,” Oswal said.MCX-SX vice-chairman Jignesh Shah has told the Press that they will not undercut the cost of competitors to bring in more volumes.“We are in a marathon and do not believe in sprint. It should not so happen that we register a world record turnover on day one and you have to search our presence from day two. We want to build a strong foundation and build ourselves on it,” Shah said in the post launch press conference on February 9.
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Business is becoming social at a scale that has not been seen in years. A combination of factors have led to a situation that many debates and actions on sustainable business practices are being initiated by global corporations. While many observers remain skeptical about it, the new sentiment must be welcomed, nurtured and channelised into action. The crash of financial markets humbled arrogant global corporations into realising that they are as infallible as other institutions. Since then industry leaders have been trying hard to convince society about the good done by corporations. Now they realize that talk is not enough. And therefore there seems to be an earnest move by some companies to put their money where their mouth is. The freak weather systems and environment disasters have further added pressure on companies to critically examine their business practices. A welcome development by the UN has been to involve corporation is first of its kind global discussion on development agenda for the world. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon set up a high level panel of eminent personalities from across the world to “to advise on the global development framework beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”Apart from heads of state and development specialists, the panel includes Paul Polman CEO of Unilever and Betty Maina, CEO of Kenya’s Association of Manufacturers. Unilever has been taking inputs from rest of industry across the world. These and other inputs will finally be absorbed by UN in deciding questions like what to maintain, exclude or add to the MDGs. UN is not alone. There are other efforts like the one driven by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) on sustainability. GRI sets guidelines for organisations on creating internal assessment on sustainability of business practices. The focus is on enabling companies to measure and then manage sustainable practices. Over 5000 companies across the world are now following GRI guidelines across 80 countries. Over 95% of top 250 companies are among these. But there is a long way to go. Most companies do not even have a system in place even if they are keen to make a difference. The critical step is then to report the sustainability effort and share it with all stakeholders. This remains the agenda for change. Many companies are ready for setting framework and internal reporting mechanisms. Some have started doing it eagerly so that top management can take corrective action. But this has a cost attached to it which is seen as a hurdle. Mature companies are not only taking on the cost but are also encouraging their vendors and suppliers to follow similar practices. The problem is of external reporting. Most companies hesitate to share until their internal systems have become sustainable. While there is a business case for sustainability, the real achievement will be when market value of companies is influenced by such transparency.For this to happen, the investor community and financial institutions must demand and put a value on sustainable practices. (Pranjal Sharma is a senior business writer. He can be contacted at pranjalx@gmail.com)
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The coming budget should provide a significant boost to an ailing automotive industry. Despite best efforts, we are quite likely falling short of the goals set in the AMP 2016 by several tens of billions in terms of contribution to GDP and several millions in terms of jobs.It is important that government focuses on areas which it should support and regulate rather than areas where its value addition is minimal. Take excise duties on diesel vehicles as an example. While there is significant agitation against diesel, the fact of the matter is that diesel engines today can meet the most stringent of emission norms. It is also beyond doubt that diesel engines are 20-30 per cent more fuel efficient than petrol engines. Hence a larger diesel penetration has the potential to reduce the country's trade imbalance by reducing fuel imports. The government should focus on defining emission norms rather than on imposing increased excise duties on diesel vehicles and trying to influence the technology with which emission norms are achieved. Emission norms have an impact on the health of our citizens, how they are achieved and which technology is employed is up to industry to decide. Government's capability to define the right technology path is questionable at the very least.A case in point is the support for electric vehicles in India. Due to the high cost of batteries large scale adoption of electric vehicles in India is unlikely for four-wheelers. In addition, since energy generation in India is mostly coal-based, the overall positive ecological impact of e-mobility in India is also questionable. Fuel efficiency criteria regardless of technology employed would have a better effect as far as environment and balance of payment are concerned.Another area of government intervention, that may not serve the needs of the consumer, is the long-standing discrepancy between the excise duty on large and small cars. Separation of large and small cars is arbitrarily defined as sub-4m for small and larger than 4m for large cars. Rather than simplifying the operating environment for car companies interested in developing their business in India, we complicate the regulatory environment and increase development and production costs for serving the Indian market. As most global companies in India are currently under severe financial stress due to the dramatically depreciating rupee, flat markets and increasing input costs, these types of regulations have a negative effect when discussions for further foreign direct investment come up at corporate headquarters abroad.Positive steps to support cost reduction and demand creation that the government should undertake are several. All of which have been discussed in the past, but seem to be stuck up in government deliberation. Key initiatives include a defined roadmap for GST introduction that will be executed swiftly. The latter is not only important for logistics optimisation across India, a swift and disciplined introduction of GST would also go a long way in recreating trust in the capability of government to take necessary actions in the support of industry. Beyond this, government needs to push for recycling and end-of-life directives for motor vehicles. Not only would the replacement of old, road unworthy vehicles help guarantee employment, it would also have a very significant impact on the environment and safety of Indian citizens. Unfortunately, safety norms in India are significantly behind standards in other nations compared to emission norms, where India is following the West with an acceptable time delay.Last but not least, demand creation activities such as tax deductibility of depreciation on personal cars for salaried employees should be considered to support the revival of an Indian automotive industry struggling with the uncertainties of doing business in India. (Dr Wilfried Aulbur, Managing Partner, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants India)
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After a brief lull, Indian telecom operators are getting set for the next round of auctions in the 900/1800MHz and 800MHz bands starting 11 March. Unlike the November auctions, where there was no bidding activity in Delhi and Mumbai, this time round the focus will be in the two metropolises. These circles will see bidding for 15MHz (12 blocks of 1.25MHz) of spectrum each in both the 900MHz and the 1800MHz bands.The 900MHz auctions could ensure that the government comes close to its Rs 40,000-crore target from telecom auctions this fiscal. At the base price alone, the 900MHz in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata will yield Rs 25,317 crore. With the Rs 9,407 crore the government has already received from the November auctions, it works out to a neat Rs 34,724 crore. Even if operators pay just a third, it works out to Rs 11, 575 crore this fiscal.While the 900MHz band is part of the re-farming exercise, the 1800MHz spectrum is on offer since there were no bidders in the November 2012 auctions. Since then, the government has reduced the base prices by 30 per cent. Also on offer is 12.5 MHz (10 blocks) of 900MHz spectrum in Kolkata and 13.75MHz (11blocks each) of 1800MHz spectrum in Karnataka and Rajasthan which did not get bidders in November.Activity in Delhi and Mumbai is assured as licences in these circles are up for renewal in end-2014. For operators who are looking to renew their licences — in the 900MHz band — there is not much of an option. It remains to be seen if there are any new bidders. The base price for one block of 1.25MHz of 900 band spectrum in Delhi is Rs 970.3 crore. It is Rs 949.8 crore for Mumbai and Rs 227.4 crore for Kolkata.Read Also: 2G Auction Ends, Govt Collects Rs 9,800 CrRead Also: SC Brings 2G Scandal To NDA DoorSo will there be bids at this price? The incumbents — Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Loop Mobile — need to bid to retain the 900MHz spectrum. Currently Vodafone has 8MHz of 900 band spectrum in all three cities; Bharti Airtel has 8MHz in Delhi and 6.2MHz in Kolkata while Loop Mobile has 8MHz in Mumbai. Says a telecom industry official: “Bharti and Vodafone do not have much of a choice. They need to bid, since these are key circles for them.”But there are still issues over the lowered base price for 1800MHz spectrum. An industry official argues that if the price of 800MHz could be lowered by 50 per cent since there were no bidders, then the same should apply to 1800MHz. Some operators are planning to approach DoT for redressal soon. Telewings (the joint venture of Norway’s Telenor and Sudhir Valia's Lakshdeep Investments & Finance Pvt Ltd) could emerge as one of the bidders for 1800MHz band spectrum in Mumbai. Says Hemant Joshi, partner, Deloitte, Haskins & Sells: “We are in a very unpredictable situation as the sector is stressed, balance sheets are over-leveraged and on top of it is policy uncertainty. In such a situation, it remains to be seen whether there is a business case at the reduced base price.”Meanwhile, the 800MHz band is likely to see selective bidding by Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd. As things stand it looks unlikely that SSTL will go in for nationwide bidding, but could focus on a handful of high-income circles.
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Gift cards that can be operated through your smartphone may be becoming a trend globally, but in India physical digital gift cards still rule and Qwikcilver controls 80 per cent of this market. Five years after launching Qwikcilver Solutions — a Bangalore-based provider of all kinds of stored value cards — BITS Pilani pass-outs Kumar Sudarshan and T P Pratap, forayed into an online multi-brand gifting portal ‘Giftbig' last year. They also provide digital gift card options for partner brands that can be gifted and delivered through mobile phones and emails. Talking to BW Online’s Tanuja Chatterjee, GiftBig Co-founder T P Pratap discusses how the digital gift cards market is growing by leaps and bounds in India.Why did you start Qwikcilver Solutions? With a collective experience of over 50 years in IT, I and my co-founder Kumar Sudarshan founded QwikCilver in 2007-2008. QwikCilver has pioneered the retailer gift cards segment and leads the gift card processing market with 80 per cent of its share. QwikCilver offers gift card solutions wherein the card holder can purchase products of their choice from any brand, store and portal. Unlike gift vouchers, the gift card amount can be partially spent and recharged as per the preference of the card holder. So far, QwikCilver has partnered with over 75 leading brands like Titan, Trent-Landmark, Peter England, Allen Solly, Flipkart, Shopper’s Stop, PVR Cinemas and Café Coffee Day among others. The QwikCilver technology is deployed across more than 200 cities and towns in over 5,000 premium brand stores across the country.How big is the gifting economy? What percentage is the voucher/ gift card market of the gifting economy?The stored-value-cards space is still very new in India. Research studies expect the Indian Prepaid & Gift Card/Voucher market to exponentially grow from Rs 2,000 crore in 2012 to Rs 9,000 crore by 2016. Currently, the overall value of e-commerce gifting is roughly estimated as Rs 20,000 crore annually. How has ‘Giftbig’ helped you grow? Giftbig.com, the e-commerce initiative of QwikCilver, is India’s first fully integrated online gift card mega mall that provides a platform for various gifting choices for consumers, corporates and channel partners across India. This is the place to pick up your gift card online. It also offers gift vouchers for particular retailers or brands. Once you buy it online, it is shipped to you free of cost. The vouchers can be used online. We started it on Diwali last year. Our founding team has experience in technology development, retail, marketing and research. It is funded by global VCs Funds Helion Venture partners and Accel Partners. The company is headquartered in Bangalore.Can you describe the way your gift card works? What are the key differentiators of your gift cards, from other companies of same nature?We understood that our consumers sometimes find it extremely difficult to find appropriate gifts for friends and family. The existing process for purchase of a gift voucher at the best brand stores in India is tedious and cumbersome. We looked at this need-gap and decided to do something about it with a technology-backed solution. By partnering and integrating GiftBig technology across the Billing POS of the retailers across all the brand outlets and portals, retailer specific gift cards are made available at these areas. The technology enables the consumers to purchase the gift cards from these outlets, that are instantly activated by the store cashier on purchase by the consumer. These gift cards are usable across all the brand outlets approved by the brand on the QwikCilver Technology, This technology has been developed uniquely for the Indian retail market with its intricacies and complexities like company owned stores, company managed stores, consignment stores, franchisee stores, buy & sell stores, etc. How is it different from the paper voucher or even conventional gift vouchers? What if a gift card is stolen or misplaced, can it be re-issued?Our gift cards are easier to carry, convenient to use, can be reloaded or recharged and partially spent. Unlike inconvenient paper gift vouchers, Qwikcilver gift cards have a magnetic strip just like a debit or credit card that provides security against misuse by another party. If the gift card is lost or stolen, the concerned brand provides a customer care number where the customer can get his card blocked. This way, when one uses the reported card, the back-end server at QwikCilver would decline the usage of the card at any outlet across India. Currently, brands do not charge any fees for genuine cases of losses proven by consumers.How are you marketing the gift cards? Do you have tie ups with stores/ Retail brands?We are associated with over 75 trusted and leading brands such as Trent-Landmark, Titan, Aditya Birla-Madura Garments, Shoppers Stop, Westside, Fastrack, PVR, Café Coffee Day, Arvind Brands, Raymond, Mahindra Retail, HUL-Bru Café, Flipkart, Hidesign, Puma, etc. for their gift card programmes and each of these brands promote their gift cards individually. At GiftBig.com, a customer is given a plethora of choice between gift cards as it is an exclusive online mall for gift cards.Are your gift cards sponsored by a certain bank? How can customers purchase these gift cards?QwikCilver Technology is a unique Closed Loop Gift Card initiative that does not require any bank relationships for the brands. All the programmes running are with long-term strategic tie-ups with our corporate partners. The gift cards can be purchased by various modes such as cash, debit or credit card at our partner brand’s retail outlets. One can also purchase gift cards from GiftBig.com, our exclusive platform for gift card retail in India through cash, COD, credit cards, debit, international credit cards etc.Are these ‘one time’ use cards or can be recharged again and used or even gifted again?Depending on the requirements, brands can launch multiple card programmes that can be one-time usage cards or multiple usage cards. Most brands have launched their card programmes that provide the convenience to the consumers to reload the cards for repeated usage and gifting. Instead of plastic gift cards, the use of digital gift cards that can be stored, tracked and redeemed through consumers' smartphones is catching on the trend, westwide. Are you also planning to launch something in the same line? Don’t you fear that e-tailing could make a physical card dated at some time?QwikCilver and GiftBig provide the convenience to brands and consumers to launch and manage all kinds of programmes – including plastic cards & digital gift cards. We already have digital gift card programmes for our partner brands that can be gifted and delivered easily through mobile phones and emails. These e-gift cards are also another option that is available for consumers who wish to get away from the physical form of the card. Also, although digital cards are still slowly gaining popularity, it would be incorrect to say that physical cards would be outdated in the near future as they form an essential part of certain kinds of gifting where tangible gifts are the norm. For example, weddings would probably still see the use of the physical gift card as it may not be very acceptable to turn up a at a wedding ‘empty-handed’, as a digital card would hold a lesser value at such occasions. The Indian market would witness about 15 per cent of the gift card market move to the digital version in 3 years from the launch phase. Are your services only confined to India or you are also planning to go global?As of now, we are focused on Indian retail sector and establishing the market with the leading brands and retailers of India. Over the next 24 months, QwikCilver shall establish its presence across other key global markets that have shown interest – such as regions like South-east Asia and EMEA.Giftcard.com gives customers a chance to create a gift card on their own. Do you also provide same sort of service to your customers?Card customisation services are being offered and deployed across more than 150 corporate customers through Giftbig.com. Did you deliberately choose to have different outlooks for Qwikcilver and GiftBig in terms of the services offered?QwikCilver is the name of our company that provides the technology for the gift cards. However, we felt that the name would not be appropriate for a consumer brand as such. We chose GiftBig as it would be easy for the consumer to relate to it as the name signifies its purpose and is also easier to remember.What are your future projects?Our recent initiative is Giftbig Friends Club launched after 7 months of efforts by our team. This club will enable the Facebook friend-to-friend engagements that can extend the gifting process on Facebook itself. Without the need for any address of the recipient, this has received a very positive response from across India.This is India’s first social –to-local marketing platform that has been integrated with Facebook.
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As a country, we are going to have increasingly younger population. We can only benefit from a young work force if they are educated and possess the necessary skill-set to be employed. Thus, we need to look at improving the education sector and training thecurrently employed workforce to make sure they are upgrading their skill-set. We need this if we hope to create enough jobs for everyone and to be ready as a country for an increasingly knowledge driven economy. In order to achieve these objectives, we need to do the following at the earliest:Evolve a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for improving the upkeep of existing government schools for primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Develop a mechanism to grant additional funds to states/schools that take actions to reduce drop-out rates in elementary education, ensure high pass percentage in board exams and increase the percentage of female students in schools. Improve the quality of teachers and faculty by imparting training as well as improving compensation for bright graduates to get into teaching as a vocation. Focus on improving quality of education especially in the higher education sector. While we do produce enough professionals (engineers, medical doctors, allied fields, business school graduates), the quality of graduates from many institutions needs to improve substantially for them to be employable in the workplace. Provide incentives for private sector to invest in primary and secondary education.Give tax breaks for the corporate/private sector to develop and support new educational institutions in the rural and industrially backward regions. Provide incentives for private sector to invest in primary and secondary education.Give tax breaks for the corporate/private sector to develop and support new educational institutions in the rural and industrially backward regions. Allow the corporate sector to earmark investment in the education sector as Corporate Social Responsibility. Improve outlay for education. As a country, we do not fare well in terms of education sector spending as a proportion of GDP with other BRIC Nations/developing countries. Vocational education needs to be aligned with industry requirements. Create incentives for private sector to upgrade the existing Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) so that ITIs create a pool of readily available workforce for the manufacturing sector. Investment in training of existing workforce by companies should be given tax breaks. Create policies to spur investments in the education sector in the backward regions of the country on the lines of industrially backward region. This will help create inclusive growth and slow down migration from rural areas to urban sectors.(The author is assistant professor - organisational behaviour, Indian School of Business)
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Trade numbers for 2012 show that China has become the world’s biggest trader, unseating the United States that has ruled the global trading charts for several decades. It is a momentous shift that is bound to have far-reaching impact on the way Beijing sees itself and the manner it influences geopolitics.As it becomes the biggest trading partner of many developed countries, eclipsing their bilateral trade trends, a China flushed with cash, has the ability to increasingly push its agenda even in places where it has been seen as a security threat. After all, business means money and nobody wants to make any less if there is an opportunity to make more. That’s why countries with close commercial ties seldom go to war.The US Commerce Department said this month that America’s exports and imports of goods totalled $3.82 trillion in 2012. According to China government figures unveiled last month, that country’s total trade in goods stood at $3.87 trillion last year. China, however, seems to be a reluctant torchbearer of global mercantilism. It is now contesting the method of calculation and has said that the United States continues to be the world’s biggest trader and that a new World Trade Organisation report due out soon will say as much.But despite the reluctance on part of the world’s second-biggest economy to take over the mantle of the global trade leader, the fact remains that China’s economic influence has only increased in recent years. By 2011, China had overtaken the United States to become the biggest trading partner of 124 countries, according to a Chinese government report. That number was only 70 in 2006. The shift has mostly been at the cost of the United States and going ahead that is unlikely to change as a ravenous China – hungry for natural resources and technologies – will buy more and more to feed its factories and people.For an economy that is still only half the size that of the United States, China’s economic muscle flexing is not new. Flushed with huge foreign exchange reserves, Beijing has offered to help economies in trouble as its large companies – backed by state banks and the government — have gone around setting businesses across the world. There is a view that the Chinese economy would surpass the US by 2018 mainly because of an inward fuelling of demand by a large population. Beijing is also trying hard to shift from its export-led economic boom after a domestic slowdown thanks to a collapse of demand from its major Western buyers.As its trade with the world and the overall size of its economy expand, China’s ability to influence trading blocs and politics in its big trading partners will also increase. To some extent, the shifts are already visible. In Europe, in Africa, in Asia and in South America, there are signals that despite fears countries are more willing to work with China than before. So, while the United States can grumble and threaten to take steps to curb its growing deficit with China, it will always find it difficult to turn it into a full-blown and sustainable bilateral economic or diplomatic issue. The two countries have extremely deep economic ties and a trade of surplus of $219 billion in favour of China 2012 is only one sign of that intricate relationship.Despite a view in the United States that Chinese companies are up to little good in foreign markets in their quest for business, US regulators have approved China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s $15 billion takeover of Nexen Inc. – the largest overseas buy by a Chinese company. Given that the US Congress called in two Chinese telecom companies for a hearing on charges of alleged threat to national security only a few months ago, this is a remarkable change of heart. Nexen is a Canadian energy company, but the buyout required US approvals since it has assets in the Gulf of Mexico.Most countries – small and big, rich and poor — will go out of their way to accommodate their biggest trading partner, and this is where China will continue to make gains. Beijing will be able to influence trading blocs and individual nations part of such groupings. So if China and Germany can work to each other’s advantage, would Berlin want it some other way for the European Union? Probably not, as it will not only sour bilateral trade ties but also impact jobs and the economy.At the peak of its colonial might, Great Britain was the world’s biggest merchant. Not only did it control a vast swathe of the landmass with colonies dotting all parts of the globe, its ships controlled most of the oceans. The little island of traders off the coast of continental Europe also influenced the economies and politics of a large part of the world before the Empire crumbled and United States – itself a former colony – became the world’s biggest economy and trader after World War II.It is now China’s turn, even though it might be reluctant to wear the crown. Since it opened its economy in the late 1970s, China’s shadow over the world has never been bigger than it is now. It may not yet be a political and military superpower like the United States, but its economic prowess gives it an edge over most of the world. It’s an edge that Beijing has used to its advantage in the past and will continue to do use.(The columnist is president, public affairs, Genesis Burson-Marsteller and a former newspaper editor. He has a deep interest in matters related to China and Southeast Asia)
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