Source: This insight came from my morning journal entry. Related reading: India has already arrived.
Every time somebody says that India built it for cheap—yeah, India basically built it for cheap, like 1/5th price, 1/10th price, 1/7th price—that’s not actually true.
India built it for actually the same price that they built. It’s just that when it’s compared in dollar terms, it looks less because the Indian rupee is depreciating, but in purchasing power parity, it looks the same. It’s is basically par for the course.
So yeah, Indian-made stuff is not cheaper and less reliable; it is just as good as it is, and it is just measured in different terms. When you compare it in dollar terms, it looks cheap, but compare it in purchasing power parity terms, it’s on par, I think.