India needs to work more towards building investor confidence to attract investment for its massive infrastructure development and boost economic growth, Singapore's DBS Bank Chief Executive Officer Piyush Gupta said today.
"I think India has to do a lot more to bring this confidence (to the investors) and be able to demonstrate that the country has the capacity to take positive actions," Gupta said in an interview with PTI.
The opportunity of the Indian market is undeniably backed by the massive consuming middle class, a strong entrepreneur class and businessmen, companies and corporations which are increasingly scaling up to be world-class, he said, giving his perspective of Indian economy and investments.
But Gupta also expressed concern on matters like disruption of Parliamentary proceedings and the "weakness" of Indian institutions in managing the resources and economic affairs. He said India was not realising its full potential and capacity.
"The fact that the last Parliament session went through without any business, the world sees this and says if your political apparatus and infrastructure is not capable of conducting a single regular business session...What are the chances that you will be able to actually put in place everything that is needed for India's future.
"...The country's leadership has still not demonstrating an ability to take a series of conclusive and decisive policy actions which will create confidence in the entire system," he said.
Gupta heads DBS, one of Asia's largest banks with Rs 30,000 crore balance sheet built in India within 15 years of its banking operation.
"The policy flip-flopping...Created a crisis of confidence. And investors do not invest for lack of confidence in the system," he said.
He cited issues related to land acquisition, mining sector and telecommunication licensing.
He said among states Gujarat had a progressive system where investors were willing to invest and share the risks, and saw the possibility of similar approach by other states.
"There is a lot of money in the world, both short-term portfolio money as well as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). There is a lot of money sitting on the sidelines and the opportunities in the world are limited," said Gupta in reference to India's investment requirements.
On the positive side, he recalled the recent inflow of investments in the Indian stock market and approval of FDIs in retail as well as announced partnerships of Jet-Etihad, Tata-Air Asia and investment commitments by Unilever and Ikea, among others.
