Message of the President
Dear TCI friends,
Registrations for the 2010 TCI Annual Global Conference are open. The 13th edition of our annual gathering will bring TCI community to India that is one of the most vibrant economies around the world with an impressive average annual growth of 8,5% in the last six years.
While we have all heard about world class companies like Tata, Arcelor Mittal or Infosys, most of us have only a vague idea of the real development of clusters in India and their huge untapped potential. According to the information provided by one of the partners of the conference, the Foundation for MSME Clusters, there are currently more than 600 industry clusters in the country excluding artisan and craft businesses that sustain an additional tenfold number more of clusters.
Trying to discover and to understand this reality will be one of the main goals of the event. An interesting location and the conference main theme "Competitiveness, Innovative Clusters and Prosperity" will provide also an opportunity to deepen our knowledge about some, sometimes unusual, but central aspects of cluster development: if and how clusters can have a direct contribution to the social advancement of the communities where they are placed and the importance of culture on a nation's development and prosperity.
Despite it can be seen controversial in some aspects, I have always agreed on the central idea of the well-known book that I read some years ago, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by American historian economist David Landes. Professor Landes argues, without never mentioning the word 'cluster' in his extensive book, that although some elements such as natural resources, geography or climate help to explain the reasons why some countries have been able to develop and become industrialized before others, there are also other factors contributing to the wealth of a nation. A nation's cultural endowments and particularly its attitude towards values like entrepreneurship, thrift, honesty, tenacity, meritocracy, as well as the openness to change and the attitude towards innovation, determine its success.
The fact that location and business culture are intimately linked and that they are important in cluster development is certainly not a new discussion topic, especially for those who have had the opportunity to read the work of seminal authors like Giacomo Becattini and others who wrote about industrial districts. Therefore, looking into the dynamics of a huge and controversial economy like India and trying to extract lessons, best practices and business opportunities would certainly be worth the effort and extremely beneficial to TCI community.
Despite India's poverty level is decreasing by 10% every year and its middle class is annually increasing by 40,000,000 new members, wealth distribution is still one of the most palpable issues also for someone like me who spent only five days in the country. If some minor advancements in the cluster-based development model provided even a modest outcome in terms of solving these problems, I would be happy to lead this effort, and I am sure I will share this endeavour with you in late November in Delhi.
Alberto Pezzi
TCI President
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