Mint Quick Edit | Go global or play local? Get competitive

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This time, it’ll need a bolder bet on a recovery in world trade from its current spasms. For an all-out export thrust to succeed, though, we’ll need wider trade bloc integration and cheaper imports.

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Critically, competitive intensity at home must rise, with allocative efficiency driven by a reduction in the state’s role. We need trend reversals. The latter may pivot on the “animal spirits" of private investors, who await an all-economy surge in demand; here, mass income support might help. 

Meanwhile, our farm sector needs market orientation. Elsewhere, vestigial rules that constrain private enterprise need to be snipped.

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As for factor-market reforms, while capital has eased as a constraint, labour faces a crisis of AI eating its lunch. Eventually, for exports to go exponential, India must acquire a global edge not just on cost efficiency, but also innovation. A rupee that floats more on trade than capital flows can cheapen exports, at best, not invent something the world can’t get enough of.