Opportunities galore for leadership role by India

There are four major factors that have created these opportunities "� the emergence of a new mood of confidence among corporate India; global economic recovery; break-through in the negotiations with Pakistan; and stability in FDI (foreign direct investments) in China "� Smajda listed the factors.

With the global economic scenario witnessing a speedy recovery, the corporates are looking at investment opportunities in emerging economies and India stands a better chance to attract FDI as compared to China in sectors like pharmaceutical, automobile parts etc, he said.

With the FDI flows into China settling down at the current levels, corporates would shift their focus to India, Smajda, who was the former managing director of World Economic Forum, made a prediction.

To harness the window of opportunity, Smajda identified seven priorities for the corporates, public sector and the government.

First priority is that the country should create a strong manufacturing base and increase the share of manufacturing sector in the country's GDP.

Secondly, the corporatess should go global by making acquisitions abroad and entering into partnerships and joint ventures.

Thirdly, the country should enter into regional trade agreements so that corporate sector can deliver higher value addition.

Expanding infrastructure expenditure, increasing the productivity of the agriculture sector, focusing on human resource development and tackling the problem of growing fiscal deficit are the other three priorities for the country to capture the window of opportunity, Smajda said.