Ramaswami: While Indian industry found it difficult to stand up to East Asian, especially Chinese, competition in the domestic market, it could not make much headway in the export market either. “Opening up” in other words had the effect of keeping industrial growth suppressed, even as it stimulated certain services. With the world economy entering into a period of slowdown owing to the dead-end reached by neoliberalism, this industrial repression has turned into a retrogression, even as the stimulation of the service sector has come to an end, pushing the economy into a prolonged period of stagnation.