Economics

Pandemic Has India Scrambling to Boost its Manufacturing Sector

  • Manufacturing has shrunk to about 13% of India’s economy
  • Almost 18 million people will be forced to switch occupation
A shopping mall is deserted during lockdown restrictions in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, earlier in May.Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg
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For decades, the services industry powered India’s growth and tempered unemployment in the world’s second-most populous nation. The coronavirus pandemic is now leading to calls for an urgent rebalancing of the economy toward manufacturing.