New Delhi, July 29
Raising duties on consumer and luxury goods and accelerating the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata industrial corridor were among the measures discussed to revive economic growth at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting with industry captains today.
The meeting — as part of Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry — emphasised removing the mood of pessimism in the economy prevailing today and to take it back to the trajectory of 8 per cent growth.
On reducing the current account deficit, the meeting discussed options including raising duties on consumer and luxury goods, reducing conditions on FDI and speeding up FIPB, a sovereign bond issue, raising easy resources by selling SUUTI, BALCO, HZL shares, improving Coal India operations through PPP, accelerating textile exports among others.
On industrial corridors, the issues discussed included accelerating the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata Corridor as this region is vital for growth.
On reviving growth, the suggestions included removing bottlenecks in the pharma sector and increasing R&D, moratorium on loan repayment for delayed projects, boosting domestic electronic manufacture, using PSU land for industrial parks, focus on incumbent investors for the short run, using government procurement to boost local industry, resolving tax issues and removing tax uncertainty and focusing on urban infrastructure.
The meeting was attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Commerce and Industries Minister Anand Sharma, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, chairman of PM's Economic Advisory Council C Rangarajan among others from the government side.
The industry was represented by Rahul Bajaj, Mukesh Ambani, NR Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Swati Piramal, Deepak Parekh, Jamshyd Godrej, Chanda Kochhar, Venu Srinivasan, Sunil Kant Munjal, S Gopalakrishnan, Rana Kapoor, Sunil Mittal and Naina Lal Kidwai.
The Prime Minister asked the captains of industry to give suggestions to improve the economy and remove the mood of pessimism that has unnecessarily spread in some quarters. While some expressed their concerns, others gave concrete suggestions on how to improve matters. The overall sentiment at the meeting was on the need to bring back the mood, converting decisions into action and taking the country back to a growth path of 8 per cent or more.
The PM wanted a report to be submitted within a month on what can be done in the next 2-3 months. Interacting at the Prime Minister’s Council for Trade and Industry, the Confederation of Indian Industry president S Gopalakrishnan expressed the need to do much more at the policy level to revive and restore macroeconomic balance.
FICCI president Naina Lal Kidwai highlighted the point that fresh investments have taken a nosedive over the past few quarters and investors continue to remain on the fence as they wait for clarity on several issues from the government.
