Private Sector’s reliance on government bailouts could be dangerous leading to a situation similar to that of Soviet Union’s over the last 70 years, said Mr R. C Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki India Limited. He was speaking at the Plenary Session on “Global Economy and its Impact on India : The Outlook” at the National Conference and Annual Session 2009 of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) held here today. He stressed that the Industry needed to proactively adopt self-regulatory mechanisms and avoid ostentatious expenditure given the wide spread disparities existing in India.
Sounding a note of caution, Mr Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation (India), advised the industry to resist the urge towards protectionism. He added “the current situation is not akin to a recession, it is a fundamental reset of the world economic order”. It would take the US 10 years to go back to the 2007 levels, said Mr. Venkatesan. Emphasizing that the next leap of growth would come from innovation, he added that the Government needed to invest in ‘soft infrastructure’ such as pervasive broadband connectivity linking every village, school and college, giving a laptop to each child and teacher in every school and college, thus building an expansive knowledge economy.
Mr. Jamshyd N Godrej, Chairman and Managing Director, Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Co. Ltd. urged the industry to go green by focusing on cost savings by reducing Industrial use of water, reducing energy and water consumption and minimizing wastes. Referring to the recently launched Tata Nano car, he said that people were willing to pay for quality as long as they got customized products. Lauding CII’s focus on sustainability and innovation, he said that due to high energy costs we are well placed to move towards green buildings.
Dr. Janmejaya Sinha, Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) termed the current crisis as one in 100 years, and the most opportune time for Indian industry to recognize the opportunity. Though certain sectors such as Auto Components, Textiles and Gem & Jewellery were badly hit, there is optimism for the sectors such as FMCG, Agriculture, Pharmaceuticals, Telecom and Rural-Based Industries. He proposed the mantra – ‘do with care, energy and discipline’ adding that the companies that would survive the next 2-3 years would definitely emerge winners for the next 30 years.
India as the second-fastest growing economy, and China as the fastest growing economy in the world, averaging a growth of 6% will lead the world out of the recession, said Dr. Surjit Bhalla, Managing Director, Oxus Research and Investments. He emphasized that China and India growing together at this pace is equivalent to US growing at 1.5-2%. Access to capital for the Indian Industry that got severely hampered in the Nov-December cannot be taken as an extrapolation for the future. Accessibility to capital has improved considerably over the last 3 months and FDI’s have not been negatively impacted.
