Economy

KEY POINTS

Factors

·         Large and aspiring middle class

·         Rising disposable income

·         Supportive business environment

·         Strong GDP growth

·         Growing smart phone and internet penetration and use

·         Complementing the above is the tremendous push by the government to improve business and investment climate.

Driving growth

·         The retail sector per se has immense potential to contribute to the country’s economy in various ways, such as

·         Being the engine of growth – Retail drives the virtuous cycle of growth because it is not at the end of the chain but is at the beginning of it.

·         Spurring manufacturing – Retail drives consumption which in turn drives demand and hence therefore leads to capacity creation/utilisation.

·         Contributing to jobs – This cycle spurs local job creation, more disposable income in the hands of people to further sustain the consumption cycle as part of this growth engine.

·         Strengthening supply chain and logistics – A vibrant retail ecosystem plays a critical role in growing the economy and also leads to huge exports.

·         It also transforms logistics, supply chain, cold storage techniques etc.

·         Creating shared value – In an interconnected world facing unprecedented environmental and social challenges, society will demand and have a basic expectation from the companies that their business should provide significant net positive return to the society at large.

This is what “Shared value” is. Retail sector, offline or online, has the tremendous ability to create shared value.

Kindly review