Prime Minister Narendra Modi today urged India Inc to seize the opportunities thrown up by global turmoil and invest more within the country.
On Tuesday, at a specially convened review meeting to discuss the global economic scenario and its impact on India, Modi asked the private sector to substantially increase its investments in the domestic economy and create more jobs within the country.
The board-room type meeting, rather than a government affair, was attended by India’s top industrialists, including Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry, ITC Chairman YC Deveshwar, and Aditya Birla Group Chairman KM Birla. The heads of the three apex industry chambers — FICCI, CII and Assocham — were also present.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who briefed the media after the meeting, said the Prime Minister wants India to utilise the opportunity from subdued global growth to strengthen its domestic economy. Modi’s remarks come at a time when economic growth is being fuelled by a ramp-up in public investments, with the private sector unwilling to take risks due to the lack of demand and legal hurdles over land acquisition and labour reforms. It also comes in the backdrop of the economy getting buffeted by the challenges of subdued global growth and weak demand in China.
Enabling environment Modi assured the industry representatives that an enabling environment would be created for domestic investments. However, India Inc should take equal responsibility in pumping in investments and creating more jobs in the country, Modi added.
“We are now concentrating on several steps, including increasing investments in infrastructure, improving the ease of doing business in India and attracting more global investments into India,” Jaitley said.
India was “integrated” with the global economy and hence it was feeling the impact of recent global developments, he added. However, India has been relatively less affected because of its strong fundamentals, he said.
Expressing a similar view, Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance, said that the recent global developments would impact the India only in the short term. The steps planned by the government would help improve India’s competitiveness in the global markets, he added.
India Inc seeks infra push
On its part, India Inc is understood to have stressed on the need for monetary easing and the need to allow the rupee to depreciate to preserve domestic price competitiveness in global trade. A suggestion was also made for early enactment of a bankruptcy law. PTI quoted Ficci’s Suri as saying that the talks centred on how to push investments, boost infrastructure, promote start-ups and lower the cost of capital. “We have requested that cost of capital be reduced, infrastructure development be expedited and tax incentives be provided to budding entrepreneurs,” Suri said.
“The news agency quoted CII President Sumit Mazumder as saying it was “acknowledged that on ‘Ease of Doing Business’ we have not reached there 100 per cent, but we have made some progress.”