Selective in Exports:
There are many industries where India has an advantage because of relatively lower costs of all forms of manpower whether it is professional or factory labour. However, while this can give an initial advantage, it should not be taken for an enduring advantage due to the following reasons. One, as products become more sophisticated, labour as a cost factor becomes less and less important. Two, the differences in costs are narrowed down through higher level of automation. Three, in processes that require large number of cheap labour, the industry is bound to shift its operation along the line of the ever-declining scale of poorer countries. So a poorer country than India can eventually overtake us with yet cheaper labour. Therefore, when one has established an export market on the basis of cheaper manpower, one has to be vigilant to make sure that one builds up other advantages to compensate for the inevitable loss of this temporary advantage.
In view of the above, we should concentrate our attention and resources on those areas where we have comparative marketing advantage instead of the traditional comparative production cost advantage. In this connection, it may further be added that although it may pay to concentrate on 'extreme focus areas', it would be more rewarding to identify the countries with low "trade intensity".