| Dear Colleagues,Boosting the competitiveness remains a pertinent challenge for governments and business across the developed and developing markets. India is also a victim of this threat. However with the new government in power, future seems promising. It is being anticipated that with the ongoing actions, India’s growth story will slowly revive and attain economic resilience over a period of time.
Going back in history shows that India’s economy has been rather subdued in the past 4-5 years time frame largely because of its weak fundamentals during that period. India’s performance on global indices remains poor. According to the Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) India’s ranking has slipped to 71st position largely because of a slow growth rate that acts as a major impediment for boosting competitiveness. Similarly, the recently released World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report also shows India’s rank dipping to dismal 142nd. The growth rate has taken a plunge and at present is hovering in the vicinity of 5% with the future not particularly looking exceptionally bright. This coupled with a high rate of unemployability; widespread poverty; rising inflation, and growing environmental concerns leading to deteriorated livability conditions, make life disconcerting for an average Indian.
India as a country needs to improve in several areas including Manufacturing, Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, and Infrastructure including Power, Roads, etc. India’s Information Technology remains its strength, and there is a need to move up in the value chain by focusing on activities, which are at the high end of the innovation ecosystem in this particular domain. By removing critical bottlenecks hampering these sectors and formulating and more importantly implementing policies, growth seems near certain. Greater focus has to be laid on bettering India’s growth story. This in turn will get on the path leading to innovation and greater shared economic prosperity.
With the coming in of the new government, there is renewed hope and a rise in aspirations of the youth who form a significant part of India’s burgeoning workforce. With the new government’s pro-business approach, trust among investors, businessmen and the common man seems to have come back. It is thus an opportune time to synergize with the pro-growth agenda of the Government and make India achieve a stronger economic standing in the world.
The need of the hour is to work together for the overarching goal and staying strong by being competitive. With this, The India Council on Competitiveness aims to list down positive set of actions and amplify the voice of leaders (policy makers, business leaders and the council’s member organizations). The goal to make India a prosperous nation.
We would like to welcome our two new members, Mr. Ajay Vir Jhakar (Chairman, Bharat Krishak Samaj) and Mr. Anil Khaitan (Chairman & Managing Director, Sunil Healthcare). In case, you want to explore the India Council memberships kindly look at the details available on http://compete.org.in/membership/. You can also interact with me pertaining to the membership opportunities available at The India Council on Competitiveness.
Regards,
Amit KapoorPresident and CEO
India Council on Competitiveness
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