Thursday, February 16, 2006
Interesting Stats from The Economist
The last page of the Economist always has some interesting stats, besides the usual GDP numbers and so on. The last two issues have both carried stats of great interest to me. The Feb 2nd issue carried a graph of mobile phone growth in Africa. Admittedly, the growth is happening from a low user base and therefore you see some staggering growth rates. Nonetheless, this goes to show liberalization is no different in Africa than it is in India or China and that if you let a competitive private sector grow, you will see some amazing results. Now, if only these governments would let the lessons of telecom be replicated across other sectors.
The second graph shows visa restrictions (a non-tariff trade barrier like none other) faced by citizens of various countries. Not surprisingly, Americans and some Scandinavian citizens can travel visa-free to about 130 countries. Surprisingly, Switzerland does not figure in here, but I am sure they would top the list. After all, there are some advantages to being everyone's bank/money launderer :) India is right at the bottom with just 25 countries letting Indians in without a visa. The bigger surprise for me is that there are actually 25 countries that let us in visa-free. I can only think of some of our neighbours, Mauritius, Hong Kong and Thailand (technically visa on arrival). Do you know of any others? I know there's about 17 countries (Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa etc) where Indians do not pay a visa fee, but you still need the visa.
Mind you, part of this visa problem was created by India when it imposed visas on countries where we could travel freely to, thereby inviting reciprocity under the Hague convention. The best way to undo some of that damage would be to unilaterally provide visa-free entry to citizens of at least the OECD countries and the large developing countries. If nothing else, this will drive up tourist arrivals and generate economic activity. The recent move to stop the discriminatory pricing against NRIs and foreigners (entry to tourist sites, airfares, hotel fares etc) is a good first step in that general direction, I guess.
The second graph shows visa restrictions (a non-tariff trade barrier like none other) faced by citizens of various countries. Not surprisingly, Americans and some Scandinavian citizens can travel visa-free to about 130 countries. Surprisingly, Switzerland does not figure in here, but I am sure they would top the list. After all, there are some advantages to being everyone's bank/money launderer :) India is right at the bottom with just 25 countries letting Indians in without a visa. The bigger surprise for me is that there are actually 25 countries that let us in visa-free. I can only think of some of our neighbours, Mauritius, Hong Kong and Thailand (technically visa on arrival). Do you know of any others? I know there's about 17 countries (Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa etc) where Indians do not pay a visa fee, but you still need the visa.
Mind you, part of this visa problem was created by India when it imposed visas on countries where we could travel freely to, thereby inviting reciprocity under the Hague convention. The best way to undo some of that damage would be to unilaterally provide visa-free entry to citizens of at least the OECD countries and the large developing countries. If nothing else, this will drive up tourist arrivals and generate economic activity. The recent move to stop the discriminatory pricing against NRIs and foreigners (entry to tourist sites, airfares, hotel fares etc) is a good first step in that general direction, I guess.
