Sonia to address India Economic Forum

The 22nd Edition of India Economic Forum kicks off on Sunday. The theme of India Economic Summit is “India Meeting New Expectations”. It will bring together more than 600 business, political and civil society leaders from over 30 countries.

Sonia Gandhi and not the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh will address the 22nd India Economic Summit 2006. Explaining this, the former director, India Economic Forum, Collette Mathur said that this was because the Prime Minister was very busy with the Winter session of Parliament and it is at his behest that Sonia Gandhi will present the 2006 Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Summit.

Manmohan Singh will meet a group of select participants of the Summit later.

Apart from the main theme, the focus of the summit will be on three thematic pillars - state and national competitiveness, managing growth, infrastructure development and risk management, the organisers said.

"Twenty-two years ago, when we started the annual summit, the general question which people like us had was 'when will India wake up'," said Colette Mathur, a senior advisor to the WEF board, at a press conference here.

"But we at WEF and CII had faith that India will definitely become a partner of the world economy. That's what has happened and this year's theme reflects that new optimism we have of India," Mathur added.

"The tremendous response received from global business participants is a clear reflection of the global business community's increasing interest and growing confidence in India as an investment destination," said CII president R. Seshasayee.

The event also includes the participation of five chief ministers - Nitish Kumar of Bihar, Sheila Dikshit of Delhi, Amarinder Singh of Punjab and Vilasrao Deshmukh of Maharashtra.