I am often asked to compare India with China. In many ways in my work, this is the wrong question but since so many clients ask it, we created a whimsical page on my companies website comparing the three largest companies in more  ways than your can possible imagine.  (India often drived my clients bananas, so I was particularly intrigued to learn that India is also the leading producer of bananas in the world! Click here for other comparisons.

The latest entry on that page today is the topic of this post. The eleventh annual Edelman Trust Barometer surveying over 5,000 people worldwide was just released. Here are some interesting results.

How much do you trust business to do what is right?
India  70 percent, China 61 percent, USA 46 percent.

How much do you trust government to do what is right?
China 88 percent, India 44 percent, USA 40 percent

How much do you trust media to do what is right?
China 80 percent, India 50 percent, USA 27 percent

American were asked, how much do you trust global companies headquartered in the following countries to do what is right?
India HQ 37 percent, China HQ 15 percent

Among India’s top ten search terms for its 80 million internet users were  American firms Facebook, Google and YouTube.  Most of China’s top search terms involve Chinese applications or web sites such as  Baidu, Tencent,s QQ instant messenger application, gaming destination 4399.com , and video site  tudou.com.

If you look at people searches, six of the 10 people on the India list hail from the film world. There are also two pop stars (Shakira and Lady Gaga) and Indian cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar. Lady Gaga appeared in the top ten list of people searched in China, the only common person among the two countries! Besides Lady Gaga, only football (soccer) united pop culture terms searched between the two countries.

This underscores the cultural differences between young people in both countries. (Most internet users in both countries are under 30)

According to the World Bank’s latest data people of Indian origin living overseas sent in more money back home than people from any other country, for the fourth year in a row.  Indians sent home $55 billion in “remittances” which is equivalent to 3.9 percent of its GDP.  China used to lead the world in this stat, until 2006 but in 2010, the Bank estimates that overseas Chinese sent home $51 billion.

The country that comes third in the rankings in Mexico at $22.5 billion. Americans living overseas sent back just $3 billion ranking them at #37 worldwide. For some smaller economies, foreign remittances make up a huge proportion of foreign exchange earnings; Tajikistan, Tonga, Lesotho, Moldova, Nepal,Lebanon and Samoa get over 20 percent of the GDP equivalent from countrymen living overseas.

According to the 2010 Kenexa Research Institute WorkTrends Report, comparing country-level employee engagement differences in India, China, The Netherlands, Mexico, Denmark, United States, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Sweden, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Japan revealed that the order of these countries is consistent with the depth of employee engagement by country.

Ikea, the Swedish retailer which has expanded in China in a big way, plans to double the amount of goods it buys from India, including textiles, in the next three to four years, to $1.3 billion according to its CEO Mikael Ohlsson quoted in the New York Times.

Ikea said it was investing about $163 million, in social programs to help women and children in India and South Asia. These investments make Ikea the largest corporate partner in the world to aid agencies including Unicef and Save the Children, representatives of those organizations said Monday.

At my company, Amritt, we have seen a huge increase in sourcing inquiries from Western companies who are looking beyond China to buy products and materials for their customers’ needs. Labor issues in China and the rising yuan are leading companies such as Ikea to look further at India and other locations to balance their sourcing plans for 2011 and beyond.