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Tax reforms next year,
PM assures EU businessmen
The Hague: Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has assured the captains of industry of India and the European Union that New Delhi continues to be investor-friendly despite corncerns over his government's reported impasse with the Left parties on various national level issues. Promising a level-playing field for foreign investors, Singh, responding to a specific complaint about India's unfriendly tax system, said that in the next budget (2005-2006) tax reforms would be introduced which would make the investment atmosphere friendlier and urged European businessmen to seize the opportunity. "We want to take full advantage of the opportunities of globalization and wipe out poverty at home," Singh said. Speaking to the creme de la creme of European businessmen at the Business Round Table in the Hague on Tuesday, Dr Singh said that India recognized that its destiny lay in embracing globalization, and since 1991 when economic reforms were first introduced in the country, political parties across the spectrum have been in government and had promoted a continuity of the reforms process. Seeking to rest all fears of Left parties making economic reforms a thorny path for the new government, Singh sought to assure the EU that there was a broad-based consensus in the direction of economic policy in the country. He said several political parties even at the regional level have "totally accepted liberalization and the logic of greater competition from abroad". Dr Singh sent out a strong message to the investor world and probably to his allies back home that his government would leave no stone unturned in integrating India into the evolving global economy.
"We accept the compulsions of multilateral trading system. Successive finance ministers in the past ten years have repeated the assurance that India is committed to reducing tariff rates to ASEAN levels", and his government would do the same, he said. He heard out the complaints of EU and Indian business leaders who said that the major barriers in investing in India were (a) lack of infrastructure (b) bureaucracy (c) tax system. The participants at the meet agreed that there is an urgent need for maximum political consensus on investment in the infrastructure sector to the tune of about 150 billion dollars. It was a speech that was sprinkled liberally with Manmohanisms, which drew an appreciative response from the participants. The Prime Minister said "India is not a mercantilist economy. The more we export the more we will import. We do not want to accumulate reserves just for the sake of accumulating reserves. The more we earn the more we will spend." Seeking to banish the poverty glorification of the past, the Prime Minister said: "A society that respects those who create wealth is a society that is an achieving society". "Businesses would be the custodians of the possibilities of civilization" he said. The Prime Minister reminded European businessmen that they have known Indian markets for long and they have a cultural affinity with India, and that it is time now for them to capitalize on this knowledge.
To the FICCI, CII participants, the PM said there should be closer cooperation
between government and businesses, so that India could get a better deal
out of global markets. He said that businesses could play a role in bringing
societies together thereby building new bridges across diverse cultures.
A gentle rap was also administered on the wrists of Western nations by
the good doctor. He said that India was concerned "that at a time when
we are accepting the logic of globalization, the argument for protectionism
is reoccurring in the West". He expressed the hope that the trend would
be reversed. Among the participants were the president of CII and Hero,
Sunil Munjal, the Chairman of ITC, Y.C.Deveshwar, Malvinder Singh, the
president of Ranbaxy, Vinod Mittal, MD of Ispat Industries and Onkar Kanwar,
the Chairman Apollo Tyres. European participants included business leaders
from French and German communication and transport sectors, President
of Philips appliances, Dutch, Belgian, Czech specialists in motor cars,
engineering and technology sectors. India
takes first steps to partnership with EU |
