China currently dominates a number of hi-tech areas in terms of market share which poses a significant concentration risk and the Quad nations must focus on reducing dependency on a particular geography, a well-known Indian American serial entrepreneur and head of recently formed Quad Investment Network has said.
The Network, which was formally launched in May, is an independent forum of public, private, and philanthropic stakeholders from the four Quad nations (Australia, India, Japan and the US). It was created to foster cooperation, collaboration, and co-investment into critical technologies and supply chain resilience to develop innovative solutions to the greatest economic and security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. “We have a significant concentration risk with the number of areas where China currently dominates clearly in terms of market share anywhere from 70 per cent, 80 per cent to even 100 per cent,” Karl Mehta, chairman of Quad Investment Network told PTI in an interview on Tuesday on the sidelines of the APEC Leadership Summit here.
“Take an example of permanent magnets, which is a USD 400 billion market and almost close to 100 per cent of the permanent magnet manufacturing now happens in China because of the rare earth that is required. They control the mining, they obviously control the processing,” he said.