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Global India Business Meeting
The Global India Business Meeting held by Horasis in Munich brought together over 300 senior business leaders and bankers from India, Europe and the USA. The newly nominated Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr Anand Sharma, made an in-depth presentation about the Indian model of economic development, based from the independence of the country on a mixed based economy in which the state played a critical role. Faced today by the effects of the new globalization, India has been able to maintain a solid growth which, he hoped will reached a higher figure in 2010 if not already at the end of this year. He also mentioned that India will make every effort to help to close the Tokyo Round, now commonly called development round, successfully.
During the numerous small sessions, business leaders exchanged their views on their experience in doing business with India, sometime successfully, sometime with more difficulty. Many wondered why foreign investment is not higher in India. Are people too preoccupied by short-term returns? Regarding exports: are the products adapted enough to the Indian market?. India is destined to be one of the 4 or 5 major economic powers in the future, hence the need to better understand each other and take advantage of India's political stability, respect of intellectual property and availability of talents. Some business leaders made recommendations to their peers: offer good and tailored products at a reasonable price and cheap products for the low revenue buyers, be patient with the bureaucracy, have a clear strategy, develop local talents, find the best Indian partner, come up with solutions to overcome infrastructure shortcomings, reinvest profits in India, fight protectionism, be clear on the timing of your investment, transfer technology after negotiation, chose the state with availability of infrastructure, talents etc. They all agreed that the human dimension is key if your want to be successful in India.
Colette Mathur was asked to comment during the session on Human Resource. She took this opportunity to underline the very urgent need in India for the vocational education of professional workers and the lack of proper institutes and formal training in qualified industrial houses. Other panelists mentioned the need to urgently increase the number of engineers to fill up the high demand for talent.
The mood was very positive and there was a general consensus about the importance of working with India.
Meeting with Kamal Nath
Meeting with Minister Kamal Nath, Minister for Transport and Highways
The objective of the meeting was for Minister Nath and his delegation to explain the huge programme of transport development that India has embarked on. Newly appointed at this post, Minister Nath showed his determination to advance the programme as it has never been done before. For instance he has promised to build 20Km of roads every day, instead of 3 kms built previously.
Mr Brijeshwar Singh, Chairman of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) made a comprehensive presentation of the present situation and the enormous plans of infrastructure development in roads.
Minister Nath made an appeal to private sectors' investors to enter in PPP (public private partnerships ). India has proposed the largest PPP programme in the world with around 70.000 kms of new roads needed. 50 cities of more than 1 mio people will be concerned. The main difficulties are in land acquisition, dispute settlements and inter-state agreements. If India is to grow rapidly it will need adequate infrastructure and, in particular, modern roads.
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