NEW DELHI:Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday had a nearly three-hour meeting with the country’s top industrialists, bankers and economists to take stock of the global economic scenario.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley said after the meeting that Modi asked the industry captains to assume more risks and increase investments, while reiterating that India will remain relatively untouched by the global turmoil.
Modi urged the industry to focus on creating more employment by boosting spending and attracting global capital while improving ease of doing business. The Prime Minister laid thrust on low-cost manufacturing and felt that the strength of the economy is in its huge human resource and size of domestic market.
Commenting on the outcome of the meeting, Ficci president Jyotsna Suri said, “The Prime Minister said this is an opportunity for us to take advantage and invest... cost of capital is too high but I don’t know how many people can go ahead to take risk and invest... many of us raised the issue of interest rate.”
Industry leaders also sought an interest rate cut to bring down cost of funds to boost capital spending.