Fundamentals of Economy are Strong - FM
THE Union Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee has expressed confidence that the fundamentals of the economy are strong and the growth drivers in the medium term remain broadly intact. He was interacting with the captains of top business houses, in Delhi yesterday. During his two and a half hour marathon meeting with top business leaders of the country, he said that the industry should play a proactive role in taking the country to the path of higher trajectory of growth. He said that such interaction should help in building the synergy needed to propel the economy to greater heights in the coming months. He said that there here had been some cynicism expressed of late regarding lack of adequate movement on policies and institutional processes. He stated that he found this view to be based more on perception than facts because several significant policy initiatives had been taken in the recent past and many others were in the pipeline.
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.The meeting was attended by Anand Sharma, Union Commerce and Industry Minister along with R. S. Gujral, Finance Secretary, R. Gopalan, Secretary, Economic Affairs, Rahul Khullar, Secretary,Commerce, R. P. Singh, Secretary, DIPP, G. C. Chaturvedi, Secretary, Petroleum, P. S. Sundareshan, Secretary, Heavy Industry, P.Umashankar, Secretary,Power and Dr. Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Adviser among others.
From the business side, it was virtually India's Who's Who in business - top industrialists who attended the meet include Ratan Tata, Anil Ambani, Anand Mahindra, Y C Deveshwar, Sunil Mittal, Sunil Munjal, N R Narayana Murthy, G M Rao, Venu Srinivasan, RP Goenka, Shashi Ruia and G V K Reddy.
The Finance Minister Mukherjee said that on the global front, the sovereign debt problems that had beset the Euro zone over the past year were now threatening to spill over to the larger economies. From India's perspective, the issues of concern were the possible rise in commodity prices and increased volatility in capital flows.
The FM said that he was aware that much more could be done by both the government and the private industry. He invited the concerns and suggestions from the top business leaders present. He said that there was a panel of Secretaries to take note of sector specific concerns as well.