reading comprehension Practice Questions Answers Test with Solutions & More Shortcuts

DIRECTIONS:

Read the fol lowing passages carefully and answer the questions given below them. Certain words are given in bold to help you to locate them while answering some of the questions.

PASSAGE

In a disarmingly frank talk at the Indian Merchants Chamber in Mumbai, the Japanese Ambassador in India dwelt at length on issues that exercise the minds of Japanese investors when they consider investment proposals in India.

Raising the question "What comparative advantages does India offer as an investment market?", he said though labour in India is inexpensive, wage levels are offset by productivity level to a large extent.

Acknowledging that the vastness of the Indian market is a great inducement for investment in manufacturing industry, he wondered if it was justifiable to provide that overseas remittance of profit in foreign exchange be fully covered by exchange earnings as had been done. Significantly, on the eve of the Prime Minister's visit to Japan, the government delinked profits repatriation from exports, meeting this demand.

The Ambassador said foreign investors needed to be assured of the continuity and consistency of the liberalisation policy and the fact that new measures had been put into force by means of administrative notifications without amending government laws acted as a damper.

The Ambassador pleaded for speedy formulation of the exit policy and pointed to the highly restrictive control by the government on disinvestment by foreign partners in joint ventures in India.

While it is all too easy to dismiss critical comment on conditions in India contemptuously, there can be little doubt that if foreign investment is to be wooed assiduously, we will have to meet exacting international standards and cater at least partially to what we may consider the idiosyncrasies of our foreign collaborators. The Japanese too have passed through a stage in the fifties when their products were derided as sub-standard and shoddy. That they have come out of that ordeal of fire to emerge as an economic superpower speaks as much of their doggedness to pursue goals against all odds as of their ability to improvise and adapt to internationally acceptable standards.

There is no gainsaying that the past record of Japanese investment is a poor benchmark for future expectations.