AP Partnership Summit - Competitive federalism to put country on high growth path: Jaitley

FM says State after state is holding investors' meet these days, which only indicates that every one has started realising the importance of reforms

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said competitive federalism was going to help the country achieve high growth in the coming months.

"State after state is holding investors' meet these days, which only indicates that every one has started realising the importance of reforms and investments," the minister said while delivering the inaugural address at the CII Partnership Summit in Visakhapatnam.

Complimenting the state and its leadership for entrepreneurial energies, Jaitely stated the consistency of the leadership of being business-friendly was also important in addition to the stability of policy to attract investments.

While Andhra Pradesh and several other states have started pitching for investments to achieve higher economic growth on one side, the nature of economic activity was also undergoing change on the back of entrepreneurial enthusiasm being reflected by the startup movement, Jaitley said.
 

Even while the global economic growth was being revised downwards every six months, India stands out in terms of economic growth and it should further grow with the participation of more private investments, Jaitley said. "We cannot afford to change the direction in this respect," the minister added. He stated that the factors that have had an adverse impact on the global economy, including the low oil prices, were not hurting India and in fact they were coming handy at the time of regaining economic growth.

For the country to reach the double-digit growth rate, states like AP should grow at 14-15 per cent and act an engine of growth for the country, the minister said.   

After seeing the success of the start-up movement, the government has been contemplating a 'Stand Up' policy wherein each of the 150,000 bank branches in the country would be asked to fund one woman and one SC/ST entrepreneur every year. According to the minister, about 17 million small entrepreneurs in the country had availed themselves of the Mudra Bank loan facility.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu requested the finance minister to help the state grow at 14-15 per cent as it would put India on the double-digit growth path. The minister agreed with the chief minister's contention.

Close to 1,500 delegates, including 300 foreign nationals from 41 countries, are taking part in the summit even as Chandrababu Naidu succeeded in  turning the event into a grand show with the presence of a number of central ministers and industry leaders besides lining up huge investment intents.  

The three days are packed with a large number of activities including various sessions and MoU signing apart from one-to-one interactions between the chief minister and the potential investors.

A large contingent from central ministers including power minister Piyush Goyal, Union minister of state for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman, secretary - department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Amitabh Kant were present at the inaugural event.

Besides, ADAG Group chairman Anil Ambani,  chairman, CII National Committee on Defence and chairman and managing director of Bharat Forge Limited Baba Kalyani, GMR group chairman GM Rao,  Apollo Group chairman Pratap C Reddy, CII president Sumit Mazumder, and president designate Naushad Forbes were among the important members of the industry who attended the inagural event.