ICC India – FICCI International Seminar on “India in the world economy”
December 1, 2006 – New Delhi

ICC India, in association with FICCI, organized an International Seminar on “India in the world economy” on December 1, 2006 in New Delhi. The purpose of this seminar was to discuss India in the world economy, with particular emphasis on both the challenges and opportunities facing India in this context, and India’s emerging role as a global hub for the knowledge economy. The seminar featured senior business executives from India and other countries.

Addressing the ICC India-FICCI seminar on ‘India and the World Economy’, the Chairman of ICC, Mr. Marcus Wallenburg cautioned that to sustain India’s high growth rate and make it truly a global player, it would have to open up sectors such as retail, banking and insurance, cut red tape, beef up infrastructure to boost manufacturing, bridge the gap in the availability of graduates for the growing knowledge-intensive industries and create conditions conducive to faster inflow of FDI.

Mr. Wallenburg said: “While India’s services boom fills the world with admiration, it does not tell the whole story about India. The entire IT industry in India employs less than 2 million people, out of a workforce of 400 million. For India to sustain its growth rate and truly become a major global player, it needs to expand its business capacity and replicate in other sectors what it has achieved in the software industry.”

The ICC chief put much store by India’s leadership in helping to restart the Doha Round of trade negotiations. He, however, noted that from a global perspective, it seems that India is committed to trade liberalization, but remains wary of binding, multilateral obligations. “A successful Doha Round would bring immense benefit on a global scale but it is clear that there is reticence at the domestic level which we need to overcome,” Mr. Wallenburg pointed out.

The Indian government needed to create a well-functioning judicial system for providing confidence to investors, provide social safety nets to help ease resistance to labour reforms, and release resources from over-protected and subsidized sectors to finance the building of infrastructure.

Mr. Yogendra Kumar Modi, President, ICC India said the development of India’s infrastructure posed a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge lay in establishing a network of roads, airports, seaports and other core sectors, while infrastructure development was a real opportunity for investors, foreign and Indian.

He emphasized that one can’t miss out on the fact that India had an unmatched demographic profile. India is the only country in the world where the size of the working age population will increase over the next 20 years before it begins to decline and India is the only large country in the world where the average age of the population will decline before it rises. It had uniquely a great opportunity to reap the demographic dividend.

Whatever obstructions still remained in the path of India to take its rightful position in the global economic system would be fast removed and businesses, were greatly encouraged by the government in forging private-public partnership to bring to fruition the ambitions of this nation.

Expressing all-round optimism, Mr. Hari Shankar Singhania, Past Chairman, ICC, pointed out that economically, socially and politically, India’s growth and development was sustainable, not a bubble. He alluded to the rapid transformation in the economy, particularly in the mindsets of the stakeholders. The demographic profile of the country, availability of intellectual talent and skilled manpower provides confidence for the future, he said.

The panel discussion on ‘India in the World Economy – Opportunities & Challenges saw the participation of Mr. Saroj Kumar Poddar, Vice President, ICC-India & President, FICCI; Mr. Onkar S Kanwar, CMD, Apollo Tyres; Mr. Anil K Agarwal, President, ASSOCHAM; Mr. Uriel Lynn, President, Federation of Israeli Chamber of Commerce; Mr. Rajan Bharti Mittal, Joint MD, Bharti Enterprises; Mr. Tatal Abu-Ghazaleh, President, Talal Abu-Ghazaleh International; Mr. Shivinder Mohan Singh, Group MD, Fortis Healthcare; and Mr. David Appasamy, Chief Communication Officer, Sify.