EVENTS

Abstract        

India has witnessed an upsurge in Chinese investments over the last few years. The slowdown in China’s domestic economy and the new found optimism about India’s economic prospects has fuelled this trend further. A bilateral economic relationship which was centered largely around trade is now maturing with investment thrown into the mix. This is subjecting decision makers and managers in companies on both sides to a sharp learning curve. At the macro level, the opportunity for Chinese investments in India is quite clear since cost of capital in India is relatively high and China has vast foreign exchange reserves waiting to be deployed worldwide. India is also a large emerging market with enormous demand for Chinese products. However, a plethora of challenges are faced when one drills down to specific investment transactions between Chinese investors and Indian companies. Differences in cultures and legal systems make any type of cross-border investments an interesting phenomenon. Additional factors such as mutual distrust, political uncertainty and negative perception of Chinese industry in India which are unique to the India-China relationship make deal-making even more complex in this space. In the following years, whether or not Indian companies can benefit from Chinese investments will be largely determined by their ability to learn from these early experiences. 

About the Speaker

Santosh Pai is a Partner at an Indian law firm and also the Founder and Head of the firm’s India-China legal practice. The firm advises some of the largest Chinese investors in India and also helps Indian companies in negotiations with Chinese investors. He has lived in China for five years and visited more than 40 cities. He is an alumnus of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. He has undertaken an MBA at Peking University and a Master’s Degree in Chinese laws at Tsinghua University. He is currently working on a research paper about Chinese Investments in India.