Changing End-Markets and the Transformation of India’s Organized Retail Networks:

Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi are delighted to invite you to a Workshop on Changing End-Markets and the Transformation of India’s Organized Retail Networks: Evidence from the Garment Industry by Meenu Tewari, Associate Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Date:                Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Time:               3.45 p.m.

Venue:             Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110 021

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The structure and dynamics of global production is changing rapidly. Driven by a growing consolidation of production within global and regional supply chains, the regionalization of markets and production, and an increasing focus on the rise of consumer markets in emerging economies, there has recently been discussion of changing end-markets, or the rise of southern markets as destinations of exports and sites of global and domestic consumption. Some have called this trend a by-product of the recent global recession but others see it as a deeper structural shift associated with changes in global growth patterns, demographic shifts, efforts at regional integration and the growing organization of retail networks in large emerging economies. This paper uses the Indian garment sector, an industry quintessentially tied up with urbanization and manufacturing, as a lens to examine the debate over shifting end-markets and asks what they might mean for the way in which work is organized and governed i n the domestic markets of these rising southern economic spaces. The Govt. of India recently altered the regulatory regime governing organized retail in the country by opening up the sector to foreign direct investment, particularly in urban markets. Contemporaneously, it also signed bilateral trade agreements that allowed duty-free imports of several products from countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. At the same time complex dynamics over urban, peri-urban and greenfield industrial land development have had implications for industrial location decisions as well as the emergence of organized retail networks, particularly large format stores and supermarkets. Through the frame of the garment industry, this paper examines how these emergent retail institutions are transforming the domestic value chains that link production with retail in the Indian garment sector and the implications of these developments for the prospects of economic upgrading, local development, labour market outcomes and working conditi ons.

Meenu Tewari is an Associate Professor of Economic Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, local industrialization, skill formation and upgrading within regional and global production networks. Her work has been published in several journals including, World Development, Competition and Change, Environment and Planning A, Oxford Development Studies and Global Economy Journal. She received her Ph.D. in Economic Development and Urban Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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This is the forty second in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: Marie-Hélène Zerah atmarie-helene.zerah@ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org

A line of confirmation will be highly appreciated. 
Look forward to seeing you at the event.

With regards,

Pratap Bhanu Mehta