Corporate India is nervous about the global economy and is holding back investments. Top industry leaders spoke to CNBC-TV18's Shereen Bhan at the CII global economic policy summit in Delhi on Thursday and expressed apprehension over investing citing the global economy and potential lack of return on investment.
Uday Kotak, the executive vice chairman and managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, who was also on the panel, said companies need to act ahead of the curve and move forward with investments. One of the ways to do this, according to the senior banker is by growing the number of successful companies by nurturing the ones that are coming up.
"We want to see world-scale companies. At the same time from an Indian point of view, we want to see many flowers bloom. We should not have a situation where it is just a very small garden. We want a garden which is large enough, maybe not too fragmented. We need a few big successes. But, it still means, we need a reasonably large number of Indian companies getting to scale. And, I would, therefore, like to see, as consolidation happens, we also see innovation as the basis for India's growth in India and globally.
Meanwhile, Aditya Puri, senior advisor at The Carlyle Group and the former managing director of HDFC Bank, laid hopes on the rural economy bouncing back.
“Certain regions are going to be more impacted and that is more to do with the distribution of rainfall and the impact of the receding the untimely rains have caused in certain areas. So certain areas will be under stress. But overall, my assessment is that it is going to get better over time.”
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Talking further about India, Baba Kalyani, CMD of Bharat Forge said railway modernization is happening at a rapid pace, adding that manufacturing in India will see a game-changing situation if the defense ministry takes a leaf out of the railway ministry's playbook on modernization.
He said, “There are pockets of opportunities where things are happening at a much faster pace, for example, railways are undergoing tremendous modernization. If the defense ministry starts doing what the railways are doing in terms of creating large industrialization capabilities then India will have a game-changing situation in manufacturing for the domestic market also.”
For the entire discussion, watch the accompanying video