Another milestone in the rise of Asia: Mahindra & Mahindra, the Indian manufacturer claims to have overtaken John Deere as the world’s biggest manufacturer of tractors.

Here’s more, lifted from today’s Financial Times: “Anand Mahindra, the group’s managing director, said India’s buoyant rural economy and joint ventures in China had helped Mahindra Tractors to take the number one position in the number of tractors sold during the past two years. The growth of Mahindra Tractors reflects the emergence of Indian companies in taking dominant global market positions traditionally held by multinationals from the developed world. “The data is very clear on this,” said Harvard-educated Mr Mahindra. “The acquisition of Punjab Tractors, our Chinese [tractor] companies doing well and the substantial growth in the Indian market put us very clearly in front [of Deere] in being the world’s largest manufacturer of tractor by volume.”

Mahindra & Mahindra’s success in China is interesting. The relationship between India and China will be fundamental to all of our experience of the 21st century; if they can become deeply integrated trading partners (rather than Pacific rivals) both stand to benefit enormously, and Asia is likely to be a fundamentally stable region. The Sino-Indian relationship is something we will be exploring at Asia House next week (Monday 16th January), when we have the economists David Smith (Sunday Times) and George Magnus (UBS), and former Tata Executive Director Alan Rosling discussing how this relationship might develop. If you’d like to come along please email Ed Shawcross on edwards@chartwellpartners.co.uk.