NEW DELHI: India has a huge opportunity to be part of the global supply chain as wages rise in China and businesses explore other manufacturing bases, noted economist Martin Feldstein said on Monday .
"In China, wages are rising very fast. China is becoming non-competitive. The best alternative for them is India. India should be involved in the supply chain activity that are now happening in China," Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard University , said at a panel discussion at the ET Global Business summit.
"There is great opportunity that now faces India. In India, with 1.3 billion consumers it has tremendous opportunity to take advantage of that," he said, pointing to the developments in the domestic economy , including massive digitization. He also said that there were signs that the global economy was turning.
Feldstein's optimism was equally shared by Anil Agarwal, chairman of Vedanta Plc who said India presented huge opportunities. "When we go outside, people are nervous, people are depressed, people are thinking jobs will go away tomorrow. I never see that kind of depression in India, no matter what happens. The positivity counts," Agarwal told the panel discussion "Navigating the new abnormal."
"I am very very optimistic about India. I am appealing to everybody to be positive, the opportunity you have here you will not find anywhere else in the world," Agarwal said to a round of applause.
Rich Lesser, Global CEO of consulting firm BCG, also appeared optimistic about India and listed several strengths that could help it be part of the emerging market growth engine for the world.
Ajay Piramal, chairman Piramal group, referred to the issue of non-performing assets and said there was an urgent need to address the issue."For me, the bankruptcy code has to really start working. I have seen that in the past nine months not much has happened. To my knowledge, not a single resolution has taken place. I think we need to be a little more. This needs more attention. Productive banking is not taking place," he said.
Talking about bad loans, Agarwal said issues such as bad loans are part of the development process of a country ."When you build the country , the episodes such as bad loans have to come. It has happened everywhere. You cannot hold a gun you have to hold machine gun. You cannot count bullets when you are building a na tion. The law will take its own course but it cannot hold our development," the Vedanta chief said.
Piramal said there were moral issues linked with bad loan problem as well. "There is also some moral issue on bankruptcy . I see there are companies which have Rs 50,000 crore loans. How can you write off Rs 50,000 crore loans of one individual company when you have hundreds of thousands of farmers? if somebody says you write off Rs 5,000 crore there is uproar, it is financial indiscipline," he said.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com