India needs high quality governance: Jaitley

Observing that India needs to learn from international best practices in governance, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday called the corporate sector to utilise opportunities that beckon India's economy.

Addressing a function here where he presented the 13th ICSI National Awards for Excellence in Corporate Governance to Companies and Company Secretaries, Jaitley said that India would have reached greater heights had there been higher quality of governance.

"Governance is one area where we have to learn a lot from international best practices, be it political or corporate governance. If India could do well with mediocre level governance, with high quality of governance this country perhaps would have reached greater heights," Jaitley said.

Handing over the awards to the recipients, Jaitley also asserted the Indian economy was coming of age and called the corporate sector to make use of the immense opportunities that will be available once the economy attains the take-off stage.

"Indian economy is coming of age, we had a few setbacks in the last two-three years but I am sure these are transient stages. For the corporate sector, the opportunities are immense, the opportunities of forming associations, joint ventures and investments," he said.

"Once we are at the take-off stage of the economy once again, the opportunities for Indian corporate sector are going to be immense. So it's a challenge that we take control of these opportunities and adopt international best practices," he said.

Contending that only the highest form of professionalism sustains the market, Jaitley called for identifying the "black sheep" and "allow the law to take care of them".