LIVE TV
India
Recommended Stories
After meeting about two dozen CEOs of global companies on the sidelines of World Economic Forum Annual Meeting here on Thursday night, Sharma said these companies are looking at India very seriously in the wake of recent policy decisions and initiatives the government has taken.
"I can see that there is enthusiasm, there is express desire to engage more with India and invest in India, by believing in the commitment in India and in economic reforms and liberalisation and also to create a regime that is friendly to investors," the Commerce and Industry Minister said.
"The message has gone loud and clear and those investing in India are aware of what our policies are," he said.
Asked whether there is a sense of foreign investors not being very confident about investing in India after the reform process looked halted earlier amid regulatory issues and matters like corruption and if these issues were flagged in the meeting, Sharma asked: "But, when did we stop, that is my question?"
"Regulatory regimes are there in any mature democracy or economy and when we had the collapse of regulatory regimes we saw what happened in the US and Europe. I have very firm views in this regard, because there were no firm regulatory regimes for their banking and insurance systems and that led to creation of toxic financial assets which led to the collapse of not their own economies and institutions, but also had huge adverse impact on the global economy."
"With regard to the issue of corruption, we always say that we will never tolerate corruption. But to single out one country or a group of countries for corruption is unfair. We have seen corporate frauds in the developed and rich countries."
"We have seen corruption scandals in many other countries, but this becoming a cliche with respect to developing economies and emerging economies is not acceptable. We are a rule-based and rule-governed democracy and nobody should question our commitment to a institutional mechanism to address these issues. I am not seeking certificates from individual opinion makers who do not have adequate comprehension of from where we come from," he added.
Among others, the meeting was attended by top executives of Telenor, Merck, Bristol, Bata, Aetna, Jones Lang LaSallem KPMG and Sistema. The top executives of large Indian companies like Hero, Bharti, Jubilant, Godrej, Genpact and Triveni Engineering were also present.
The representatives of companies like KPMG, Telenor, Merck and Bristol said after the meeting that the Minister told them about the recent decisions by the government on reform front and explained to them the growth prospects in India.
