Modi says best time to invest in India, highlights economic reforms

New Delhi, January 17, 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said this was the best time to invest in India and said the country was committed to becoming a reliable partner of the world in global supply chains.

Speaking on the "State of the World" at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Davos Agenda via video-conferencing, Modi highlighted India's growing attractiveness as a partner and said it was making way for free trade agreements with many countries.

"India’s capabilities in innovation, technology adaptation and entrepreneurship spirit makes India an ideal global partner. This why, this is the best time to invest in India," he said.

The Prime Minister referred to the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and said India was tackling it with caution and confidence and moving ahead in the economic sphere with many hopeful results.

He said that India, as a strong democracy, has given a bouquet of hope to the mankind which comprises Indian’s unwavering faith in democracy, technology that is empowering 21st century and talent and temperament of Indians.

The Prime Minister said that, during the pandemic, India saved many lives by exporting essential medicines and vaccines. India is the world’s third largest pharmaceutical producer and is considered to be the "pharmacy to the world" he said.

Modi said that, today, India is providing a record number of software engineers. More than 50 lakh software developers are working in India. He informed the meeting that India has the third largest number of unicorns today. More than 10 thousand start-ups have registered during the last six months. He also talked about the India’s huge, safe and successful digital payments platform and pointed out that, in the last month itself, more than 4.4 billion transactions took place through Unified Payments Interface.

The Prime Minister talked about the measures being taken for enhancing Ease of Doing Business and reduction of government interference. He mentioned simplification of corporate tax rates and making them the most competitive in the world. India has deregulated areas like Drones, Space, Geo-spatial mapping and has brought reforms in the outdated telecom regulation related with the IT and BPO sectors. “We did away with more than 25 thousand compliances in the year gone by," he added.

Underlining India’s confident approach, the Prime Minister highlighted that when the world was focussing on interventions like quantitative easing during the coronavirus period, India was strengthening the reforms. He listed the strides taken in physical and digital infrastructure like optical fibre in 6 lakh villages, 1.3 trillion dollars investment in connectivity-related infrastructure, goal of generation of 80 billion dollars through asset monetization and Gatishakti National Master Plan to bring all the stakeholders on a single platform to infuse new dynamism to the seamless connectivity of goods, people and services.

Modi told the forum that not only is India focussing on easing the processes in its quest for self-reliance, it is also incentivizing investment and production.

The most clear manifestation of that is 26 billion dollars worth of Production Linked Incentive schemes in 14 sectors, he said. He stressed that India is making policies keeping in mind the goals of next 25 years. In this time period, the country has kept the goals of high growth and saturation of welfare and wellness. This period of growth will be green, clean, sustainable as well as reliable, he said.

The Prime Minister focused on the ecological cost of today’s life style and policies. He pointed towards the challenges that current life-style causes for climate. “‘Throw away’ culture and consumerism have deepened the climate challenge. It is imperative to rapidly move from today’s ‘take-make-use-dispose’ economy to a circular economy,” he stressed.

Referring to the Mission LIFE, that he gave at the CoP26 conference, the Prime Minister said that making LIFE into a mass movement can be a strong foundation for P-3 i.e Pro Planet People. LIFE or Lifestyle for Environment is a vision of resilient and sustainable lifestyle that will come handy in dealing with the climate crisis and other unpredictable challenges of the future, he said.

He also mentioned India’s record in achieving the climate target well in advance of the target dates.

Modi emphasized the need to adapt as per the changing realities of the world order. He said that the global family is facing fresh challenges in the changing world order and called for collective and synchronized action from every country and global agency. He cited supply chain disruptions, inflation and climate change as key examples. He also gave example of cryptocurrency where related technologies and their challenges do not lend themselves to the decisions of any single country. He called for the world to be on one page on this.

He asked whether the multilateral organizations are in a position to tackle the challenges of the world order in a changed scenario, as the world has changed from the time when these organization came into being. “That is why it is imperative that every democratic nation should push for reforms of these bodies so that they can come up to the task of dealing with the challenges of the present and the future,” he added.

NNN