Daily Financial News Analysis – 17th Nov'19

American Robots Lose Jobs To Asian Robots

Outsourcing in 2019 is turning out to look like.
Since 2016, Adidas has been operating SPEEDFACTORIES in Germany and USA.

Adidas is planning to deploy robotic technology in Asia to cut down costs.

Because they have turned out to be expensive and ill-suited to the variety of products the company wants to churn out.
Labour is relatively cheap in the eastern hemisphere, so it’s not entirely clear how automated these plants are.
But it’s likely there are a few robots involved.
The factories had helped the company improve its expertise in innovative manufacturing, but it aimed to apply what it had learned with its suppliers.
Founded by German cobbler Adi Dassler in 1949, Adidas has shifted most of its production from Europe to Asia and now relies on more than 1 million workers in contract factories, particularly in China and Vietnam.

India’s October trade figures deepen concerns about the health of our export sector.
Merchandise exports fell 1.1% from a year earlier to $26.4 billion last month.
September 2019: 6.6% decline
Exports have been stuck in negative territory for three months in a row.
Sharp decline in the trade deficit to $11 billion in October from $18 billion a year earlier.
This was on account of a 16.3% decline in imports, to $37.4 billion.
Exporters have had to suffer inordinate delays in the refunds due to them under the goods and services tax regime.
India’s decision to walk out of the RCEP, which will make access to a vast, rapidly-growing market difficult for them.
New Delhi’s trade differences with the US.
As for bilateral trade deals, our record so far has not been encouraging.
If India is to revive its flagging export sector, it will have to reshape its policy mix in various ways.
Local manufacturers need to be competitive globally.
The recent reduction in corporate tax is a good move on the financial front.
Past experience suggests that exposure to foreign competition is especially vital—which requires lowering import tariffs, not raising them.
Export-oriented reforms are also need of the hour.

There is no denying that India has made considerable improvement in education enrolment in recent years.
We have almost reached the goal of universal access to schooling.
But what are our learning outcomes?
According to the ASER (Rural) report 2018, only 50.3% of Class V children can read a Class II level text.
This shows a high degree of what the World Bank defines as learning poverty – being unable to read and understand a simple age-appropriate text by age 10.
If a child cannot read age-appropriate text his or her learning curve is likely to plateau, as he or she will be unable to move on from identifying words to grasping subject concepts.
Put another way, all later schooling becomes a waste.
Countries which have prioritised and invested in foundational learning have produced a better quality of workforce, enabling their economies to take off.
Both South Korea and China did this in the 1970s, and the impact on their economies was tremendous.
Therefore, India would do well to shift the focus onto foundational learning.
And getting age-appropriate reading right by Class III is a simple, quantifiable metric that can be implemented across the education landscape.
As government rolls out a new National Education Policy, it would do well to code in foundational learning and oral reading fluency.