A recent article in a leading publication evaluated 12 years of Make in India with 12 metrics and a verdict of “low and patchy impact”. The metrics are real.
The verdict rests on a choice the piece never defends. It sets India’s record since 2014 against the 12 years before, as if both periods offered the same world. They did not. Time a runner without asking whether she ran downhill or into a gale, and you learn little about the runner.
Two different worlds
Between 2002 and 2013, world merchandise exports tripled, from $6.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. Markets were open, rules were stable, and a rising tide lifted every exporter. Between 2014 and 2025, world exports grew by less than two-fifths, to $26.3 trillion. That decade brought a pandemic, tariff wars, sanctions and armed conflict. India’s non-petroleum exports grew more than 400 per cent in the first period and 53 per cent in the second, by the article’s own count. Most of that gap is the world, not India.
The flat export share has a cause too, and it does not lie in New Delhi. China’s trade surplus more than tripled between 2014 and 2025, to $1.19 trillion. Its manufacturing value added, at $4.8 trillion, is about 27 per cent of the world’s total and nine times India’s. Short of demand at home, Chinese firms export at falling prices. Subramanian and Chatterjee estimate some $365 billion of “excess” Chinese exports in low-skill sectors in 2022 alone. Indonesia and Mexico have felt the squeeze. Germany, Europe’s finest manufacturer, saw industrial output in 2025 run about 14 per cent below its 2018 level. Holding a 1.7 per cent share of world exports through such a decade is not a sign of failure.
The comparison not made
A fair assessment would ask how India did against economies that faced the same shocks. On that test, India comes out ahead. Its share of world manufacturing value added rose from 2.4 to 3 per cent between 2014 and 2025, a bigger gain than Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia or South Africa made. In dollar terms, India’s manufacturing value added grew 73 per cent, against 51 per cent for China and 36 per cent for the world. That was achieved even as the rupee weakened from about 61 to the dollar to over 85. Some will point to Vietnam, whose export share more than doubled. Over three-quarters of Vietnam’s exports come from foreign-invested firms, largely assembling imported parts. That path has served Vietnam well. India has chosen to build deeper capability at home. That takes longer to show up in trade data, and lasts longer once it does.
The article’s own numbers
In the new national accounts series, manufacturing grew faster than the economy in every one of the three years for which data exist. Manufacturing’s share of FDI inflows rose from 48 to 55 per cent. At constant prices, manufacturing’s share of GVA rose from 14.7 per cent in 2022-23 to 16.1 per cent in 2025-26, a gain of 1.4 percentage points in three years. That is hardly marginal. At current prices the share barely moved, because factory-gate prices rose slowly, held down by cheap Chinese goods. Cheaper goods are not a weaker sector.
On jobs, the article finds that total manufacturing employment barely rose. The Annual Survey of Industries shows registered factories employed 2.10 crore people in 2024-25, over 14 lakh more than a year earlier. If total employment is flat while factory jobs rise, work is moving from informal sheds into formal factories, with better pay and protection. That shift is what industrial policy is meant to bring about.
The world changed its mind
The article refers to the Prime Minister’s remark at the 2014 launch that industrialists come for a good environment, not for incentive schemes. The environment did change. GST, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the 2019 cut in corporate tax, the decriminalisation of 183 provisions under the Jan Vishwas Act, and the four labour codes in force since November 2025 all served that end. Logistics costs, long put at 13-14 per cent of GDP, are now estimated at about 8 per cent.
What changed after 2020 was the world. The US set aside $52.7 billion for chips alone, and others followed. When the richest economies began paying firms to produce at home, a country offering nothing would have offered no reason to come. The PLI schemes were India’s answer. They have drawn ₹2.4 lakh crore of investment, about 83 per cent of it in five sectors. The article treats that concentration as a flaw. It is the design. Solar modules, electronics, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and specialty steel are where scale decides survival and where China’s lead is largest. Solar module capacity has grown from 2.3 GW in 2014 to about 192 GW. Electronics exports reached $47.96 billion in 2025-26. Penicillin G, once imported from China, is again made in India.
Work in progress
None of this means the job is done. Domestic value added in electronics is still low, at 18-23 per cent. That is why the components scheme has approved 106 projects worth nearly ₹70,000 crore.
Five semiconductor units are in production, and a second phase worth ₹1.275 lakh crore was approved in July. Solar cell capacity lags module capacity. Since June, government-backed solar projects must use domestic cells, and listed cell capacity has already passed 30 GW.
The hardest task is labour-intensive manufacturing. The textiles PLI has drawn less than half of the investment once expected. China still supplies about 64 per cent of developing-country exports of apparel, textiles, leather and footwear. Seven PM MITRA textile parks are being built, with investment commitments above ₹27,000 crore.
A scheme for footwear and leather was announced in the 2025 Budget.
The labour codes will make it easier for firms to grow large. Private investment has been cautious, and the reasons are not hard to find.
A firm weighing a new plant must price in a flood of cheap imports and, this year, the largest oil supply disruption on record.
The right test
Every one of the 13 economies that grew at 7 per cent or more for 25 years after 1950 did so while engaging with world markets. India is following that path. Trade agreements with the UAE, Australia, EFTA, the UK, Oman, New Zealand and the EU open markets and secure inputs. At home, the next steps are clearer land and permit rules, and lower tariffs on intermediates, components and capital goods.
Industrialisation is the work of decades. The countries that achieved it did not judge themselves by anniversaries. They asked whether they were building capability faster than the world around them. In a decade unkind to latecomers, India has done that. The task now is to do it faster.
Nageswaran is the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. Kokila and Sahar are Indian Economic Service Officers in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance. Their views are personal
Published on October 9, 2026
