India’s economy picking pace again: PM Modi at CII’s Annual Session 2021

While delivering the virtual keynote address at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India’s economy is picking up pace once again and there is a newfound confidence in Made-in-India initiatives. The Prime Minister highlighted that the nation’s path towards economic prosperity was anchored in well-integrated policy provisions and the impetus provided by the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives. He said that India has been receiving a record FDI inflow and FPI investments thereby making the case for increased investor confidence in the nation’s potential. Additionally, the rescinding of the retrospective tax will strengthen investors’ confidence, said PM Modi.

In his address, PM Modi stressed on the importance of bolstering the confidence of Indian talent across diverse industries and sectors. Making the agriculture sector a more remunerative sector and creating the demand for Indian products in newer and existing markets was one of the examples presented during his address. 

The plenary session also featured speakers including Uday Kotak (Managing Director,  Kotak Mahindra Bank), Baba Kalyani (Managing Director, Bharat Forge), SN Subrahmanyan (CEO at Larsen & Toubro) and N Chandrasekaran (Chairman, Tata Group) served as a space of reflection on the pathways towards industrial and sectoral development. The speakers advocated for the removal of hurdles in the Finance, Infrastructure, Manufacturing and Intellectual Property domains to enhance India’s innovative potential and fill gaps in existing value chains. Some of the solutions proposed by the speakers included: 

• Creating an end-to-end value chain for the semiconductor industry. 
• Venturing into the green mobility and renewable energy spaces at a large scale. 
• Setting up of a world-class regulatory framework for the Finance sector. 
• Striking a balance between eliciting foreign investments and nurturing Indian talent. 
• Utilizing the right kind of technology to transform the economy into a 12 trillion economy by 2031. 
• Managing national capabilities/resources in data privacy, data storage, market access and immigration.  
• Cultivating export-level capabilities in technological competencies including hardware, software, services and data. 

Increased cooperation between government and industrial stakeholders coupled with timely policies can help accelerate economic recovery.