Puri was speaking at the book launch of the recently published volume, “Economic Diplomacy: India’s Ascendancy in the 21st Century”, which he released at an event jointly organised by global public policy research & advocacy group CUTS Internationaland the School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University(JNU) last weekend.
Puri also recognised that there was a growing tribe of thinkers in India focusing on economic policy and its international implications. He called on the book’s contributing authors and other interested experts to further brainstorm on the shape a redrawn global economic landscape and India’s role in it could take in the future.
This book has been curated by Pradeep S. Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS International, Amb. Anil Wadhwa, Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs(MEA) and Distinguished Fellow, Vivekananda International Foundation and CUTS, andAdvaiyot Sharma, Assistant Policy Analyst at CUTS.
Inaugurating the book, Puri said, “If our objective is to increase the standard of living of our own people, as enshrined in theGATT/WTO system, that cannot be devoid of international trade and investments. As the size of India’s economy grows, our interactions with global economic processes will become more complex, and we need to prepare.”
Puri praised the quality and effectiveness of Indian Foreign Service officers, despite India having relatively small delegations for its size. He flagged the need for economic diplomacy initiatives to get a bigger chunk ofnational resources. The volumeis a curated compilation of 29 essayspenned by diplomats and officials who have been first-hand participants in India’s economic diplomacy endeavours. Its pages contain a rich repository of practical lessons and experiences, intended to serve as a guide for the nextgeneration of India’s diplomats and civil servants.In his opening remarks, Mehta thanked Puri for releasing the book, which traces the past and charts the future of India’s economic engagement with the world.
In this context, Mehta recalled the statement made by the Prime Minister that economic diplomacy to promote our interests is the key for our growth. He emphasised that our Embassies will be judged on their performance in the areas of expanded trade i.e. exports and tourism i.e. imports, and development of technology partnerships, the three “Ts”.
He also thanked the contributing authors, many of whom were in attendance at the launch event. “The lessons and pitfalls mentioned in the case studies documented in the book will serve as a guide for the coming generations of India’s diplomatic corps. They will also shape our country’s ambitious agenda of becoming Viksit Bharat, a developed country, by 2047”, Mehta said.
Prof. Amitabh Mattoo, Dean, School of International Studies (SIS), JNU, mentioned that next year will mark the 70th anniversary of SIS, which has been at the forefront of influencing India’s foreign policy over the decades.
He also recognised that CUTS had been at the cutting edge of multilateral trade negotiations for decades, tracking and contributing to the discourse in a balanced manner.
Amb. Anil Wadhwa, the book’s co-editor, gave a brief overview of the book’s structure and contents. He underlined that the book was unique in that it contained personal reflections and contemporary experiences of diplomats, combined with anecdotal recollections, which made for interesting reading.
“India today occupies a unique position in the geoeconomic chessboard. We need to develop ideas from this new compilation to leverage our place in the world.How we look at the inter-linkages will be key to the economic diplomacy of the future”, Wadhwa said.
During the panel discussion that followedthe launch, experts discussed the evolution ofIndia’seconomic diplomacy over the years.
Amb. Sujan Chinoy, Director General, MP-IDSA, saidthat trade will co-exist with frictions in the days ahead. “Trade is something which has a momentum of its own”, he said.
He cautioned that the successful conduct of trade and technology policy requires a broader regional consensus, and a lack of such consensus on India’s economic rise will be an important factor we will have to navigate.
Chinoy added that the outside world was a lot more inter-connected, and a lot of thinking is required before embracing emerging trends such as trusted partnerships.He stressed on the futurist need for a corp of negotiators who could traverse the expanding realm of technology which generalist diplomats may not be able to grasp.
Amb. Banashri Bose Harrison, Consultant on India-Scandinavia Relations,reiterated that all activities that promote a country’s national interest fall within the ambit of ‘economic diplomacy’. She emphasised on the need to think beyond technological progress and give equal weightage to spurring innovation in the country.
“We need to identify our national interests for the next 25 years and strategise accordingly. The world of 2047 will be even more complex than today. We need an all-country approach to economic diplomacy”, she said.
Amb. Ajay Bisaria, Distinguished Fellow, ORF stated that all diplomacy is economic. He said that all of India’s external engagements are designed to preserve and promote the India story, and leverage the emerging opportunities in the world to meet our goals.
He added that there was a need for diplomats to reprogramme their instincts, both at the strategic and tactical levels, to pursue even more creative forms of economic diplomacy. “We should approach the world with strategic realism and economic pragmatism; we cannot deal with the world with idealism”, Bisaria said.
There were mixed views among the panellists regarding the need for a specialist cadre of economic diplomats and involvement of the private sector.