Does India need more supermarkets?
It's not that we have too many supermarkets.
It's rather that some other places have too few. Take, for a moment, the example of India:
Opening up the retail space to foreign investment would help in overhauling the country's antiquated supply chain. Shortcomings in the distribution systems have created huge differences between wholesale and retail prices. Inefficiencies are common. The government estimates that 40% of the fruit and vegetable production in country is lost due to inadequate storage and transport infrastructure. Waste of this magnitude, troubling in the best of times, is appalling as the country battles double-digit inflation.
Now it's true that 35 million people work in the current not supermarket distribution chain: but being able to distribute groceries without using 35 million people, by, for example, using 15 million, frees up 20 million people to go and do something more interesting, more productive.
And would you just look at that 40% waste. Sure, I know, we're told that we here in the UK throw away 30% of the food we buy because the supermarkets make it too cheap and too attractive. But moving to that system would increase the Indian food supply by 10% in itself, not a bad idea in a country with so many still malnourished.
It's absolutely true that economic efficiency isn't everything in this life. But where efficiency is called for, like in the distribution of food, it's a pretty good thing to be, to be efficient.
It's all very well for various types to complain about the supermarkets but one can look around the world and see what it's like not to have them. Worse.
Add/view comments on this post.
------------------------------
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on the link above.
