India Inc. urges govt to speed up reforms

NEW DELHI: Captains of Indian industry on Tuesday asked the government to speed up reforms as also take steps to increase investment both in industry and agriculture for ensuring attainment of eight per cent growth target, while committing total support to this endeavour.
The call for a joint participation between business and government for putting the economy on the high growth track came during the three-day long India Economic Summit that concluded on Tuesday.
Conspicuous by the absence of top policy makers including the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister for the first time in the 18-year history of the conference of top industrialists, the summit, organised jointly by CII and World Economic Forum, suggested that the government should concentrate on fiscal and labour reforms while developing the infrastructure sector.
A virtual who''s who of India Inc participated in the summit, where participants wanted the government to take a more pro-active reformist stance instead of being bogged down by political considerations.
"If there has to be an eight per cent growth in the 15 years, Prime Minister will have to stand firm in taking bold reform measures as there is no second chance," Lord Charles Powell Bayswater, co-chair at the summit said.
Cautioning that India could lose out to China on FDI, Lord Powell of Bayswater said the reform process on the foreign direct investment needs to be speeded up and said more sectors should be opened for overseas investors.
Powell said when foreign investors think of investing in the country, they get switched off by internal clashes, tensions on the border as also the slackening in the opening up of more sectors like retail for FDI.
Speaking at the Summit, Infosys chairman NR Narayanamurthy said, "The government had to do a lot of work in improving infrastructural bottlenecks, tax reforms, labour reforms and even industry had to take lot of measures.�
He said, in order to become competitive for surviving in the global business environment and for the economy to attain the magic number of eight per cent, it was important for the corporate world to take a relook at their supply chain managements, invest in technology and maintain corporate best practices.
Summit co-chair Rahul Bajaj emphasised on creation of a globalised trade environment, and said developed countries should not mingle trade issues with non-trade issues like environment and labour and give market access to developing countries.
Calling for more action on improvement of social infrastructure, summit co-chair YT Lee said, while the key to growth was reforms, it was important on the part of the business world to enhance its participation in initiatives to improve it for achieving true growth.