Learning the lingo
Sino-Indian trade is growing fast, and driving a boom in Putonghua-language schools among professionals and entrepreneurs in China's giant neighbour
The 21st floor of Mumbai's landmark Trident Hotel overlooking the Arabian Sea carries an uncharacteristic whiff of tobacco, which the Thai aroma-oil lamps lining the five-star hotel's lift corridor have failed to tame.
Plumes of cigarette smoke waft out into the corridor through the slightly ajar door of Room 2109. Closeted in the room are Zhejiang businessman Li Liangguo and his entourage, in intense negotiations with Ajoy John, an Indian supplier who owns a Hong Kong company that operates in Yiwu. Li's Jinjiu Crystal Ornaments is looking to source earrings from India through John's AVH International (HK).
I’m totally dependent on my translators … That’s not good for business
At the centre of the talks in the smoke-filled room is Kevin, an eager twenty-something translator flown in from Beijing for the meeting. It's Kevin's language skills that will determine how well John and Li understand each other and cut through the maze of offers and counter-offers to reach a deal - a heavy task for young Kevin's slender shoulders. And, given his halting English, a fairly risky one at that.
A few blocks away, in a classroom on the second floor of the city's hallowed St Xavier's College, that's the kind of risk Kavit Mehta is trying to eliminate. That is why the 27-year-old Mehta, who runs his family-owned drugs supplier KD Life Sciences, opts to spend his Sunday afternoons attending Putonghua classes.
"I'm totally dependent on my translators and have no idea what the other side is discussing among themselves in a negotiation. I could secure much better deals if I knew Chinese," says Mehta. "Familiarity with a language also helps in establishing a personal rapport, which is now absent in my relationship with Chinese vendors. That's not good for business."
KD Life Sciences deals in active pharmaceutical ingredients, or bulk drugs in industry parlance. As over half of bulk drugs used by Indian pharmaceutical companies come from China, Mehta's profits depend largely on the margins he can wring out of his Chinese opposite numbers - or rather, the margins his translator manages to secure for him.
