The Confederation of Indian Industry looks ahead towards the India growth story ahead of its annual conference in London.
‘India-UK Partnership: Working towards Global Growth’ this week explores the steps that the UK and India need to take to revive their growth and analyses how their growth can contribute to global growth.
India Inc caught up with Chandrajit Banerjee, CII director-general, to get an overview of the prospects for the Indian economy in a global context.
What is CII’s outlook for India growth?
CII believes that we will see an uptick in GDP growth rate in 2013-14. Our projections are for 6.0-6.5 per cent growth. This is based on normal monsoons, revival of the global economy and continued reform process. Interest rates have been lowered by 125 basis points over the last year, and this should also regenerate demand.
What are some of the key steps needed to revive growth?
CII has called for further decline in the interest rates to revive investments. We are also looking for fast movement on large projects, which should boost demand in upstream and downstream sectors. Some important bills are in Parliament, such as the Goods and Services Tax, which when enacted will impart a boost to growth. We are greatly encouraged by the government’s steps to bring down fiscal deficit, rationalise fuel prices, and facilitate greater participation of FDI in various sectors such as multi-brand retail and aviation.
Is the India-UK business relationship on a sound footing?
It is on an excellent footing. Recently, Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to India had the participation of a large business delegation which indicates unflagging interest in India. Due to global troubles, trade has not picked up as expected in the year gone by, but investments in both directions remain strong.
The UK is the fifth largest investor in India, and Indian companies too have made UK their base for the European markets. The present CII CEOs’ delegation will continue to build on this mutual interest and we are confident that the trade target of doubling trade can be achieved by 2015.
What more can be done to achieve the target of doubling India-UK trade by 2015?
We need to look at more sectors of opportunity and diversify the trade basket from both sides. For example, UK companies have not participated in the robust Indian infrastructure mission, which is a trillion-dollar opportunity for the next five years and requires huge outlay on machinery and equipment.
We also need to penetrate advanced manufacturing sectors such as defence, automotives, electronics, and others. We also hope to increase cooperation in services sectors like financial services, professional services and travel and tourism. Some barriers to trade such as visas can also be alleviated.
Source: http://indiaincorporated.com
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