Domestic Value-added Growth is Vital

Abstract

Gains under the global value chains (GVCs) depend on how much of a country’s domestic value added (DVA) is passing onto other countries. However, India’s manufacturing sector is found to be hollowing out, that is, its DVA growth is declining. This article estimates the linkages of manufacturing sector into GVCs, focusing on machinery and textiles industries. It measures foreign value added in exports and gains under GVCs using intercountry input–output tables of OECD–WTO Trade in Value Added (TiVA) database (2015). TiVA shows a decline in India’s share of DVA exports in its gross exports. However, India has ‘net gains’ from linking into GVCs in the two industries as the ratio of forward linkages to backward linkages is greater than one. This indicates that value-added exports are greater than value-added imports. Thus, India has enough potential to compete with other countries in the upper ends of value chains in both its machinery and textiles industries.