Follow the rich.

"In India, the revival of manufacturing to improve its share of the economy is essential for mass unemployment and income growth," wrote Prof V Anantha Nageswaran. " The Global Trade Update published  by UNCTAD states, "During Q4 2021, trade in goods increased by almost US$200 billion to reach about US$5.8 trillion" while services increased by $50 billion to $1.6 trillion. India's export of goods was up by 25% in Q4 2021 while services increased by 7%. "The government wants to boost 'Make in India', reduce import dependence and promote exports," wrote Arpita Mukherjee. To that end, the government has started the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, rationalized the inverted import duty structure and imposed higher tariffs on imports. According to the WTO, "India has one of the highest average tariffs of 15% in the Asia-Pacific region." PLI is used to encourage production of goods for which demand is weak, but, if prices are brought down by manufacturing in large quantities, demand might increase, BS. "Generally, the benefits of a PLI scheme are passed on to the final consumers of the goods in terms of lower prices." "Advanced economies have a total debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio of 300%," so they are trying to inflate their debts away, wrote Russell Napier. "For India, it is just 176%."  Inflation reduces government debt by reducing the value of money and by increased tax collections as wages and prices rise, Kahler. "Investors are realising that the key to inflating away debt is not to produce higher inflation, but to keep interest rates low while inflation is high." "Capital so repelled will have to go somewhere. India is likely to be a key destination of such capital." Napier must have missed our news. "India's retail inflation accelerated to 6.01% in January," higher than the upper tolerance limit for the Reserve Bank (RBI) of 6%, BS, while the RBI has held interest rate at 4% since March 2020, HT, thus following the same copybook of central banks in developed nations. "India Inc is likely to give out a 9.9% salary hike in 2022 compared to 9.3% in 2021, according to AON plc," ET. This will increase direct tax collections. Gross goods and services tax (GST) collection for January 2022 came in at a record Rs 1.40986 trillion, HT, due to higher import tariffs and higher prices, because GST is calculated as a percentage of the retail price. Fuel prices have been frozen in India since 4 November because of elections in 5 states over February and early March, NDTV. Prices are expected to jump as soon as elections are over, maybe by as much as Rs 8 per liter, Print. Also, "Electricity tariffs likely to be hiked as government implements pass-through model," reported DNA. India is following what rich nations are doing. The difference is that they can afford it. We can't.