Jaitley all set to sell 'Make in India' at Davos

Ambani, Mistry among hundred other industry leaders from India

The government will pitch the ‘Make in India’ programme to participants at the four-day World Economic Forum summit in Davos from Wednesday.

As many as 2,500 political and business leaders will deliberate on this year's theme, “The New Global Context”, at one of Switzerland’s biggest ski resorts.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will lead India’s delegation.

Among policymakers, Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian would make a case for manufacturing in India, officials said.

There is a separate conference hall put up in the Davos summit to show case the programme.

A lounge in place of the usual ‘India Adda’ at the Davos summit will showcase the ‘Make in India’ programme. The lounge has the ‘Make in India’ lion logo in various colours representing various sectors under the programme. Hoardings at the lounge promote the programme with slogans such as “Whatever you want to make, make in India”  and “From satellites to submarines, from pharma to biotech”.

Manufacturing in India could be cheaper as labour costs rise in China. The Indian side will cite recent ordinances such as the one on land acquisition to drive home the point that it would become easier to do business in India.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will organise a round table on investment. Besides, there will be events such as the one on Andhra Pradesh to showcase regional investment destinations.

DIPP is already marketing the programme in Washington. “Met a number of CEOs from leading American companies in Washington today [Tuesday]. Immense interest & enthusiasm to participate in the India story,” tweeted Kant.

He said on the microblogging site Twitter Honeywell, United Technology, GE and Ford were the best brand ambassadors of the India story in the US. “All of them have success stories 2 tell.” Kant tweeted Ford executives told him their $1-billion integrated factory in Sanand, Gujarat, was built in record time. Kant will head to Davos from Washington.

However, foreign business leaders might cite World Bank rankings, where India is 142 among 189 countries on the ease of doing business. India aims to rise to 50 in two years. 

India aims to improve the ranking to 50 in a span of two years. 

The Centre has of late taken initiatives to improve the environment for doing business. It has simplified the application form for industrial licences and shifted the process online to the eBiz website, exempting a large number of defence equipment from compulsory licensing, and extending the initial validity period of industrial licences from two years to three, so that there is enough time to obtain clearances.

Investors will be appraised of these changes, besides being assured of stability in the tax regime, which was disturbed by retrospective amendments to the Income Tax Act.

Apart from selling the ‘Make in India’ programme to world leaders, Indian industrialists will meet the rich and powerful from across the world. From the Indian side, Tata group chief Cyrus Mistry, Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani, ICICI Bank’s Chanda Kochhar, Jet Airways’ Naresh Goyal, Tata Consultancy Services’ N Chandrasekaran and State Bank of India’s Arundhati Bhattacharya will be attending the Davos summit.

Bharat Forge's Baba Kalyani, Essar Group's Shashi and Ravi Ruia, and Infosys' Vishal Sikka as also eminent names such as Azim Premji, Sunil Mittal, Uday Kotak, Rahul Bajaj, Adi Godrej, Naveen Jindal and Sajjan Jindal will be present.

As the euro zone struggles to revive amid a crisis in Greece and other countries trying to revive growth, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, France's President Francois Hollande and China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang will deliberate on the new global scenario.

All eyes are on political outcome of Greece elections and the meeting of the European Central Bank to ease money supply for reviving euro zone growth. 

Overall issue of terrorism is also likely to figure prominently in talks by these leaders in the wake of attacks in France. 

The WEF said that the meet is being held at a time when the risk of international conflict poses the "biggest threat" to global stability while likelihood of terrorist attacks has intensified the most since the last year. 

From corporate side, Alibaba chief Jack Ma, Microsoft's Satya Nadella Yahoo's Marissa Mayer and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg would also be present, along with IMF Chief Christine Lagarde as also heads of organisations like WTO, ILO, OECD as also central bank chiefs of Brazil, Canada, England, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland, among others. 

Geneva-based WEF, a not-for-profit foundation that describes itself as promoting public-private cooperation, has been holding this high-profile annual summit in this small town on slopes of Alps mountain range since 1971. 

The WEF said the theme--The New Global Context-- reflects the period of profound political, economic, social and technological change that the world has entered, which has the potential to end the era of economic integration and international partnership. 

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, South African President Jacob Zuma, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi and US Secretary of State John Kerry, would be also present. 

Leaders from civil society, labour unions, the world’s major religions, media and the arts would also take part in the event. 

Meanwhile, Oxfam, whose executive director Winnie Byanyima will co-chair the Davos event, said the richest 1 per cent people in the world will soon have more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent of the global population.

The Oxfam report said the explosion in inequality is holding back the fight against global poverty at a time when 1 in 9 people do not have enough to eat and more than a billion people still live on less than $ 1.25 a day.

According to the report, in 2014, 85 rich individuals held more wealth than the poorest half of the world's population -- 3.5 billion people.

Now, a year later, that figure has become more extreme -- 80 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the planet.

"If this trend continues of an increasing wealth share to the richest, the top 1 per cent will have more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent of people in just two years," the report said.