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Kathuria, Sanjay

Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice
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economic growth, economic integration, international trade policy, economic competitiveness, fiscal policy, technology development, financial sector development, gender and development
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Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Sanjay Kathuria is Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University; Visiting Faculty, Ashoka University; Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, India; and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore. Earlier, he was a Lead Economist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Sanjay Kathuria is one of the leading thinkers and commentators on economic integration in South Asia and the economic development of the region. In 27 years at the World Bank, from 1992 to 2019, he worked in South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe, including field assignments in New Delhi and Dhaka. Before joining the World Bank, he was a Fellow at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in New Delhi, from 1982-1992.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Playing to Strengths: A Policy Framework for Mainstreaming Northeast India
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020) Mathur, Priya; Kathuria, Sanjay; Kathuria, Sanjay; Mathur, Priya; De, Prabir; Jensen, Michael Friis; Kunaka, Charles; Srinivasan, Thirumalai G.
    It is widely agreed that, over the past decade, accelerating infrastructure investments in India's North Eastern Region (NER) and neighboring countries, along with connectivity agreements with Bangladesh, hold immense promise for unlocking NER's economic potential. Other global trends, such as the growing incomes and consumer awareness in India and neighboring countries; a rising preference for fresh, healthy, safe, environmentally friendly, and socially responsible products; the growing role of services in manufacturing; and increasing demand for skilled resources are also very favorable for NER. Together, these developments can help NER showcase its strengths in agriculture and services, thereby developing value chains in these sectors, which will lead to sustainable, better-paying job opportunities for the people of NER. In this context, the World Bank, in consultation with stakeholders--government, private sector, and academia--analyzed two cross-cutting constraints that are encountered across all value chains and sectors in NER: connectivity and logistics, and product standards and quality infrastructure. To ground the policy in specific contexts, the team studied four sectors in depth: fruits and vegetables, spices, bamboo and related products, and medical tourism. Playing to Strengths lays out an initial policy framework for NER that integrates demand and supply and shows that, even with a low base in manufacturing, NER can leverage its strengths in agriculture and services to step up its growth. However, implementing this framework will require a different approach to doing business compared with the existing ecosystem and its associated value chains, which are mostly geared to local and/or price-conscious consumers. In capitalizing on its advantages, NER will not only accelerate its own development, but also will play an increasingly critical role in the government of India's "Act East" policy.
  • Publication
    Strengthening Cross-Border Value Chains: Opportunities for India and Bangladesh
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020) Kathuria, Sanjay; Kathuria, Sanjay; Mathur, Priya; Gitau, Ciliaka Millicent W.; Khanna, Aman; Manghnani, Ruchita
    It is widely agreed that, over the past decade, accelerating infrastructure investments in India's North Eastern Region (NER) and neighboring countries, along with connectivity agreements with Bangladesh, hold immense promise for unlocking NER's economic potential. Other global trends, such as the growing incomes and consumer awareness in India and neighboring countries; a rising preference for fresh, healthy, safe, environmentally friendly, and socially responsible products; the growing role of services in manufacturing; and increasing demand for skilled resources are also very favorable for NER. Together, these developments can help NER showcase its strengths in agriculture and services, thereby developing value chains in these sectors, which will lead to sustainable, better-paying, job opportunities for the people of NER. In this context, the World Bank, in consultation with stakeholders--government, private sector, and academia--analyzed two cross-cutting constraints that are encountered across all value chains and sectors in NER: connectivity and logistics, and product standards and quality infrastructure. These are discussed in Playing to Strengths: A Policy Framework for Mainstreaming Northeast India (Kathuria, S., and P. Mathur, eds., 2019, World Bank). This volume is a companion piece to that report; it analyzes four value chains--fruits and vegetables, spices, bamboo and related products, and medical tourism--and provides an assessment of how Bangladesh can benefit from NER’s increasing connectivity and growth prospects. The sector studies emphasize the need to reorient the supply base in NER toward serving the changing global demand and puts an explicit focus on women as well as the bottom 40 percent of the workforce. In light of the mutual benefit offered by economic exchange, improvements in connectivity offer a win-win opportunity for NER and Bangladesh.