INDIA OFFERS EXCELLENT BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, MARAN TELLS CANADIAN
INVESTORS
MEETING
OF CANADA-INDIA BUSINESS FORUM HELD
Addressing
the Canada-India Business Forum here today, Shri Murasoli Maran,
Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, told Canadian entrepreneurs
that India offers excellent opportunities to do business and the
investment scenario is also very stable.
"With an annual average GDP growth of 6.5 per cent a year in
the last decade, ours is one among the fastest growing economies
in the world. Even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, India’s
growth rate did not fall below 6 per cent. The Indian rupee continues
to be strong and stable. Our current annual rate of inflation
is below 3 per cent. Despite the global economic slowdown, our
growth prospects, even in the short term, are brighter than elsewhere",
the Minister said.
Shri
Maran said that India’s foreign investment policy was perhaps
one of the most open and liberal in the developing world.
FDI upto 100% is permitted in a host of areas including several
infrastructure sectors, while under the new Exim Policy announced
just a few weeks ago, the Special Economic Zones have been made
even more appealing for foreign investors, Shri Maran said. He
said there was a paradigm shift in the attitude of states also
and the emphasis of reforms was increasingly getting shifted.
"Each one is now competing with the other to get more FDI.
This competitive spirit and realisation will soon remove many
of the bottlenecks that may prevail at the state-level now. We
all understand clearly that we have moved from a world where the
big eat the small to a world where the fast eat the slow and we
realise that SPEED is the key of the reform process", he said.
Mr. Pierre S Pettigrew, Minister for International Trade, Canada
also addressed the inaugural session and later the two Ministers
jointly released a Book on Canada. Shri Sanjiv Goenka, President,
CII and the Canadian High Commissioner to India, Mr. Peter Sutherland
were amongst others present at the inaugural session.
Noting
that the total trade between India and Canada was still under
US $ 2 billion, Shri Maran said that there was much that Canada
could offer India in terms of high technology especially for the
infrastructure sector. He urged greater Canadian investment in
India and pointed out that FDI inflow from Canada to India was
the lowest amongst the G-8 countries, being just 1.1% of the total
FDI inflow. This situation needs to be reversed, he said. The
Canada-India Business Forum could play an important role in catalysing
trade and commerce between the two countries and in enabling the
realisation of its full potential, Shri Maran said while expressing
the hope that this target would be achieved with our joint efforts.
