Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Dr PK Mishra, on Saturday delivered the keynote address at the plenary session, ‘A World Priced for Risk’, at the 5th Kautilya Economic Conclave in New Delhi, underlining the growing importance of resilience, diversification and strategic preparedness in an increasingly uncertain global economy.
Countries are seeking to combine domestic capabilities with diversified international partnerships, strategic reserves, alternative supply chains and deeper economic cooperation. “It has to mean the ability to remain open to the world without becoming excessively vulnerable to it. He highlighted energy security, critical minerals, strategic industrial capabilities and diversification of external economic relationships as important elements of India’s response. Dr. Mishra stressed that resilience must be accompanied by productivity and competitiveness. He cited the transformation underway in electronics, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and other strategic sectors.
Dr Mishra said the nature of economic risk has changed significantly, with the world increasingly confronting not merely calculable risks but uncertainty that cannot be reliably assigned probabilities. The pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, supply-chain disruptions, trade restrictions and rapid technological changes, he said, have brought this distinction into sharp focus. Dr Mishra said uncertainty changes economic behaviour, with firms diversifying suppliers, maintaining inventories and developing alternative production capacity, while governments strengthen reserves, fiscal buffers and strategic capabilities. “Resilience is not free,” he said, adding that the key economic question is whether the premium paid for resilience is justified by the potential cost of the disruption being avoided. He said the emerging global response does not represent a retreat from globalisation, but a reassessment of how it should be organised in a world of greater uncertainty. Speaking about India’s experience, Dr Mishra said resilience cannot mean insulation from the world. Building domestic capability, he said, should not mean replacing imports at any cost, but creating capabilities that are competitive, scalable and ultimately capable of serving global markets.
