Modi assures reforms, US CEOs want them quicker

Modi assures reforms, US CEOs want them quicker

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 10:14 PM IST
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New York : As top American CEOs held no punches about the “obstacles” in ease of doing business in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his meetings here with top corporate leaders, has pitched for stronger inflows of foreign capital into India while assuring reforms, prompt decisions and transparency. The chief executives were impressed but wanted the pace of reforms to be hastened.

Following an interaction with the leaders in the financial sector, the prime minister held two more such engagements — an hour-long interface with the top brass of media and entertainment industry and a 90-minute dinner meet with 42 of the world’s top corporate leaders drawn from Fortune 500 companies.

Indian interlocutors said those at the meetings were eager to support Modi’s initiatives — like on “Make in India”, “Digital India”, “Skill India” and “Startup India” — and also viewed the South Asian country among their top five markets to do business with.

Fortune Editor Alan Murray, who moderated the discussion, said complicated regulations, excessive permitting, confusing bureaucracy, poor infrastructure and overlapping local taxes were raised by the CEOs who urged the Prime Minister to “pick up the pace of change”.

They praised the Prime Minister’s efforts to improve the climate for business, while highlighting the obstacles. One of them said, “It is not an easy place to do business.” The Prime Minister pledged to speed up efforts to reduce the role of the government in business. “The world is not going to wait for us. I know that,” Modi said.

“Reform in governance is my Number One priority. We are for simplified procedures, speedy decision-making, transparency and accountability,” said the prime minister, before dining with them at the Waldorf Towers Hotel in Manhattan where he is staying.

“Foreign direct investment all over the world has fallen but in India it increased by 40%. This reflects confidence in the Indian economy,” the prime minister said during the interaction over dinner with the chief executives, drawn from Fortune 500 companies.

They included Ford, Lockheed Martin, DuPont, IBM, GE, Boeing, Pepsi, CitiBank, Starwood, MasterCard, Marriot, Caterpillar, Merck, Qualcomm, Saandisc and Cisco.

Modi also individually met with the US-India Business Council chair Ajay Banga, industrialist and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Lockheed Martin chief Marillyn A. Hewson and Aecom chief executive Mike Burke.            -Agencies

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US media magnates pitch for faster 4G rollout, digitisation

New York: American media and entertainment industry leaders made a strong pitch for early expansion of 4G network and TV digitisation during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who told them that India offers “biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge for them”.

The CEOs, who included News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch, Sony Entertainment’s Michael Lynton, and Discovery Communications’ David Zaslav, also called for strengthening mobile infrastructure.  They were enthusiastic about the digital transformation that is taking place in India through the ‘Digital India’ initiative, an official statement said. The Prime Minister spoke of the Government’s vision to connect 600,000 villages through broadband connectivity.

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“All of them said India is the biggest market for them in terms of the phenomenal growth of the entertainment channels, in terms of the youth in India wanting more such content. They asked for speedier digitisation of the Indian systems,” External Affairs Minister spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

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