India Economic Summit to begin today

World Economic Forum (WEF) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), hosts of the two-day India Economic Summit from Thursday, say the geopolitical tension with Islamabad will not have an adverse impact.

They also said the Reserve Bank has been doing a good job but the country also needs to tackle its structural problems, to move to the next level of development. Many corporate seniors —Vedanta chief Anil Agarwal, Paytm India founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, JSW Group head Sajjan Jindal, Hero MotoCorp head Pawan Munjal and Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal — will attend. So will several Union ministers —Suresh Prabhu, Dharmendra Pradhan, Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani — at different sessions.
 

At least 600 participants from a little over 30 countries will take part. The meet will focus on issues like financial inclusion through digital transformation and regional economic integration.

At a press conference, CII director-general Chandrajit Banerjee said, “The clarity with which the government has been responding to the geopolitical scenario (regarding Pakistan) which has emerged recently is extremely encouraging. Business or the economy will not get affected.” Jennifer Blanke, member, executive committee of the WEF, said the region would continue to have “quite rapid growth”. On her earlier comment that “economies need to be competitive for monetary policy to be effective” and the 0.25 per cent repo rate cut on Tuesday by RBI, she said the central bank “is seen as having done a really good job”.

However, she added, developing and advanced economies alike had depended “too much” on monetary policies. “To really have sustainable growth, you cannot count on things like extra bursts of extra money in the system. What you need to do is to tackle those underlying structural impediments... RBI needs to keep making sure that everyone has confidence in the system.”

The meet will not be opened by finance minister Arun Jaitley, unlike the previous two times since CII and WEF joined hands to host it. Commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman would. Banerjee said Jaitley was travelling, “the only reason for his absence”.

He also played down the absence of anyone from the finance ministry.

THE BIG PLATFORM

• World Economic Forum and Confederation ofIndian Industry, hosts of the two-day India Economic Summit from Thursday
   
• Many corporate seniors —Vedanta chief Anil Agarwal, Paytm India founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, JSW Group head Sajjan Jindal will attend
   
• More overseas assets to be attached in the coming years
   
• Increased bilateral cooperation in intelligence and investigations