Spread wings abroad, FM tells India Inc

Business Standard toasts the scriptwriters of the India story.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram today called upon India Inc to go for more acquisitions abroad to make the Indian economy a powerhouse.

"Last year, Indian companies spent $3 billion in acquisitions. I want you to take out more money and go for more acquisitions," he said after giving away the Business Standard Awards at a glittering function attended by a galaxy of business leaders here.

Assuring industry that the government would "handle the politics "" the left or the right," the minister said India Inc should concentrate on building the economy.

"Earlier, no one could even dream of making a billion dollars. Today we have many billion-dollar companies and many more will come."

Commenting that there was no way that India could shy away from globalisation, Chidambaram asked Indian companies to benchmark themselves against the best in the world.

"Globalisation is the ability to source capital from anywhere in the world where it is the cheapest, to obtain technology from anywhere in the world where it is the best, to have the capacity to make products anywhere in the world where it can be done most efficiently and to sell anywhere in the world that offers the best price," he said.

Pointing out that the Indian economy was moving at a healthy clip and that there was an investment boom, Chidambaram had a word of caution for India Inc. Industry must be ready for any downside and prepare a fallback strategy in case things went wrong.

"What if there is a hike in global interest rates, crude oil prices go out of control, or a conflagration takes place in some part of the world? We must have a fallback strategy to deal with any possible downside also," the finance minister said.

In an obvious reference to some of the BS award winners, Chidambaram showered encouraging words on the "new kids on the block who are set to give the established players a run for their money".

"In India we have young leaders""young fund managers, airline owners and entrepreneurs ""who will become household names soon. There is hunger, aspiration and fire in the belly among young Indians throughout the country," he said.

Championing the cause of rural India, the finance minister said the government wanted domestic demand to drive growth. Indian companies must exploit the opportunity of the rural markets.

"It is heartening that Indian business is reaching out to poor people and the rural areas by producing goods and services for them. Our rural market is the largest outside China. We don't want to suppress that demand," he said.

In his remarks, Olivier Fleurot, chief executive of Financial Times, said the Indian economy had a huge appetite for domestic and international capital.

Asserting that he was in favour of free flow of capital and goods across the globe, Fleurot said the Indian economy grew by 7-8 per cent a year in the last few years and was poised to attain 10 per cent gross domestic product growth in the coming years.

T Thomas, chairman of Business Standard Ltd, complimented the finance minister for his efficient handling of the economy and gave a brief background of the Business Standard awards held every year.

The CEO of the Year award was given to Tata Steel Managing Director B Muthuraman for transforming the steel giant into one of the most efficient companies in India.

Receiving the award, Muthuraman said the award belonged to the thousands of people who for 100 years had transformed and reinvented Tata Steel many times over.

P J Nayak, chairman and managing director of UTI Bank, received the Banker of the Year award for catapulting a small new private bank into the big league.

"A few strategic decisions and the tireless work put in by our employees were behind the bank's strong growth in recent years," he said.

The award for the Equity Fund Manager of the Year was won by Sandip Sabharwal, head of equities, SBI Mutual Fund, while the honour of the Debt Fund Manager of the Year went to Suresh Soni, director and head of fixed income, Deutsche Asset Management.

Sabharwal got the award for the outstanding performance of SBI Global Fund, which closed the year ended June 2005 with a 111 per cent return. Soni received the award for Deutsche's floating-rate fund, which managed a one-year return of 4.87 per cent.

While Bharat Electronics Ltd won the Star PSU of the Year award, Honda Siel was the Star Unlisted Company, ABB the Star MNC and Glenmark Pharma won the Star SME award. The Most Innovative Company of the Year award was given to Air Deccan.

While Maruti Suzuki's Swift won the BS Motoring Car of the Year award, TVS Motors' Apache bagged the BS Motoring Bike of the Year award.