Speaker 1: Namaste and good morning.
Speaker 2: I'm so privileged to be leading a discussion on the
Speaker 2: future of India with those that have been deeply engaged
Speaker 2: with the India story and continue to drive it. Ashini
Speaker 2: Weshnev Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Minister of Railways, Minister
Speaker 2: of Electronics and Information. He truly wears many hats at
Speaker 2: the same time, modernizing its modernizing India's railway, shaping the
Speaker 2: country's information and broadcasting, and also working on its digital ambitions.
Speaker 2: Get A Gopinath, Gregory and Anya Coffee, Professor of Economics
Speaker 2: at Howard. Geta is someone who has shaped global economic
Speaker 2: thinking on growth and risk from her leadership at the
Speaker 2: IMF to now at Howard. Sunil Bharti mythel Chairman of
Speaker 2: Party Enterprises. Sunil Barti Mitil is an entrepreneur who has
Speaker 2: helped define modern Indian and enterprise.
Speaker 1: Baharti Airtel is a.
Speaker 2: Global communication giant and is responsible for India's mobile revolution.
Speaker 2: Mister Herrera, CEO and President IR Group, one of Wolf's
Speaker 2: most recognizable brand. I'm sure all of us here have
Speaker 2: one piece of Ia at some point in our life.
Speaker 2: As a CEO of the Itica Group, you're looking at
Speaker 2: a deeper engagement in India. Welcome all of you. At
Speaker 2: a time when much of the global economy is grappling
Speaker 2: with uncertainty, India stands out as a rare bright spot.
Speaker 2: On Monday, in its World Economic Outlook Report, IMF revised
Speaker 2: upwards it's estimate for India's economic growth for twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six from six percent to seven point three. The Fund
Speaker 2: projected global growth at three point three while describing India
Speaker 2: as a key growth engine for the world. In fact,
Speaker 2: many describe India as having a Goldilocks phase, strong growth
Speaker 2: and moderate inflation. Many projections suggest India could overtake Japan
Speaker 2: and Germany over the next few years and move into
Speaker 2: the global top three. But momentum is not destiny. The
Speaker 2: real question is about timing, execution, and choices and what
Speaker 2: does India need to do to convert this moment of
Speaker 2: opportunity into economic transformation.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start with you, minister.
Speaker 2: When you hear this framing, can India become the third
Speaker 2: largest economy? Do you feel we're asking the wrong question?
Speaker 2: Should it really be? When will India get there? And
Speaker 2: if so, how will we get there? What are the
Speaker 2: two things that will help us, and what are the
Speaker 2: two things that could halt us.
Speaker 3: India will become the third largest economy in the coming
Speaker 3: few years itself. It's not a question of will it
Speaker 3: become it certainly, that's a certainty that will happen. Is
Speaker 3: a question of within the next few years, we will
Speaker 3: definitely become the third largest economy. What's working very well
Speaker 3: is the last decade of very transformational change which has
Speaker 3: happened in a country, and it's a very well thought through,
Speaker 3: well defined and very focused execution.
Speaker 4: It's built on four pillars.
Speaker 3: The pillar of public investment in physical, digital and social infra.
Speaker 3: The pillar of making sure that the entire society grows
Speaker 3: along with the growth of the country, so very inclusive growth. Third,
Speaker 3: the pillar of manufacturing and innovation. Fourth the pillar of simplification.
Speaker 3: All this combined with the base of technology that we
Speaker 3: have put we can very clearly say that India is
Speaker 3: going to grow with six to eight percent real growth
Speaker 3: and a moderate two to four percent inflation and a
Speaker 3: nominal growth of ten to thirteen percent with ninety five
Speaker 3: percent confidence interval in the next five years. So that's
Speaker 3: the kind of growth journey which is there. We can
Speaker 3: say with a lot of confidence, and what's working very
Speaker 3: well is that the entire society is seeing the benefit
Speaker 3: of it. When we look at five hundred forty million
Speaker 3: new bank accounts opened, when we see one hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty million toilets getting constructed, when we see eight hundred
Speaker 3: million people getting ration every month, month after month. That
Speaker 3: shows that the security of the poorest comes as a
Speaker 3: priority for our government, for Prime Minister Mordigi, and that
Speaker 3: has helped us bring two hundred and fifty million people
Speaker 3: out of poverty. So these two factors are very well
Speaker 3: thought through growth path, very inclusive growth are going to
Speaker 3: be very good for our country.
Speaker 4: What's really a.
Speaker 3: Matter of concern on our minds is the global debt
Speaker 3: which is there in the rich world, the huge amount
Speaker 3: of debt, the mountains of debt in the rich world.
Speaker 3: How that debt will unable, What will be the impact
Speaker 3: We saw yesterday in Japan there was a run on
Speaker 3: the bonds. So that kind of thing, if it happens
Speaker 3: on a very large scale, what will be the impact
Speaker 3: on our country is a matter of concern.
Speaker 4: Otherwise, everything else is in a very good shape.
Speaker 3: That we will become the third largest economy in the
Speaker 3: coming years.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we'll talk a little bit later about what
Speaker 2: other things that you are doing to insulate us.
Speaker 1: But now onto you, Gita.
Speaker 2: Do you agree with that is India's ambition to break
Speaker 2: into the top three reality?
Speaker 1: What's your view?
Speaker 5: Without a doubt, India will become the third largest economy
Speaker 5: of the world. It's a matter of a few years
Speaker 5: unless something catastrophic happens. If you just look at the
Speaker 5: math in terms of India's growth rate relative to Germany
Speaker 5: in Japan, it would be very hard to see how
Speaker 5: India would not get there. And based on current projections,
Speaker 5: India gets there by twenty twenty eight. Wow, it could
Speaker 5: be even sooner than that, depending upon how the revision
Speaker 5: of the GDP numbers happens at the start of this year.
Speaker 5: I guess pretty relatively soon what happens with the rebasing.
Speaker 5: So that is not the challenge for India. The challenge
Speaker 5: for India is not about becoming the third largest economy
Speaker 5: in the world. The challenge for India is about raising
Speaker 5: per capita incomes to higher levels. And indeed, you know,
Speaker 5: I agree with the Minister that substantial reforms have been
Speaker 5: undertaken the physical infrastructure build out is impressive, The digital
Speaker 5: infrastructure buildout is impressive. What was done with the Goods
Speaker 5: and Services tax, including the simplification recently, extremely helpful. So
Speaker 5: to keep the momentum going and to keep raising per
Speaker 5: capita income and getting to the nineteen forty seven sorry
Speaker 5: forty seven goal of bixit parlot, I think that's the
Speaker 5: challenge and that would require keeping up with the steady
Speaker 5: pace of reforms to get there. But again, a lot
Speaker 5: of positive developments in India, and very important is the
Speaker 5: macro stability that you have in the country, not just
Speaker 5: with growth where it is, but also with inflation being
Speaker 5: at the low single digit numbers. That is a good
Speaker 5: spot for India.
Speaker 2: So you have said earlier that the two things that
Speaker 2: could hold us back one is land acquisition is a
Speaker 2: little bit messy deregulation and you have said we've not
Speaker 2: really used our demographic dividend to its fullest. So what
Speaker 2: are the things that you think we can do to
Speaker 2: fix some of those.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think a little bit messy is probably an understatement.
Speaker 5: It is a tremendous challenge in India to acquire land,
Speaker 5: to have clean land titles and that easy constrain on growth.
Speaker 5: It's a constraint on manufacturing. It's again there are states
Speaker 5: in India that experimenting with techniques that other states can
Speaker 5: also adopt. I think Entreprenation is doing a good job
Speaker 5: with finding very creative ways of helping with selling of land,
Speaker 5: shifting land from being agriculture to commercial land, land titling again,
Speaker 5: pushing on that is important. Judicial reforms I think are
Speaker 5: absolutely critical. That is an very important bottleneck for growth
Speaker 5: in India and it's been there. I think people have
Speaker 5: seen it as a longstanding challenge, but we're not seeing
Speaker 5: many changes in that front. In terms of the labor force,
Speaker 5: You're right, we've been talking about the demographic dividend in
Speaker 5: India for a long time, but if you look at
Speaker 5: the contribution of labor to growth in India since the
Speaker 5: nineteen eighties, only about thirty percent of India's growth has
Speaker 5: come from labor. So it is a fairly capital intensive
Speaker 5: production structure that India has because of the rules and
Speaker 5: regulations that exist in the complications of hiring labor. Now
Speaker 5: it is a very positive step in terms of implementing
Speaker 5: the labor laws that were passed by Parliament a few
Speaker 5: years ago. I think that it's great. The states need
Speaker 5: to take that and go ahead. You know, raising the
Speaker 5: number of the limit on the number of workers above
Speaker 5: which you have to face higher regulation from one hundred
Speaker 5: to three hundred is good.
Speaker 6: Though if you want to be a part of.
Speaker 5: The big global supply chain, you're going to have to
Speaker 5: be way more than three hundred in terms of the
Speaker 5: size of the labor force that you have. So pushing
Speaker 5: on that front is important. Labor market flexibility is critical.
Speaker 5: On top of that is the skilling of human capital.
Speaker 5: I think that is a very important part of the
Speaker 5: solution too. It's not just about the fact that firms
Speaker 5: aren't creating jobs. There is a mismatch between where jobs
Speaker 5: can be created and the skill of the labor force
Speaker 5: in India's so pushing on that front in terms of
Speaker 5: the level of education in human capital and skilling super critical.
Speaker 2: Minister, Would you like to come in into any of
Speaker 2: the comments that Gita has made, anything you'd like to add.
Speaker 3: We follow a model of cooperative federalism where the central
Speaker 3: government and the state governments we work together to bring
Speaker 3: out many of the reforms and some of the reforms
Speaker 3: which are happening in Maharashtra in and Pradesh, in Orisa.
Speaker 3: Many of these reforms are now becoming the temperate for
Speaker 3: the states to follow, and the labor reforms implementation is
Speaker 3: a major major major step GSD simplification, labor reforms, opening
Speaker 3: the nuclear energy sector to private sector, and reforms in
Speaker 3: practically every sector. We have two groups of ministers which
Speaker 3: are working on half the ministries in one group, half
Speaker 3: the ministries in other group, where we are going down
Speaker 3: to the procedural reforms, to legal reforms, to every possible
Speaker 3: reform that we can have. And I'll request all the
Speaker 3: participants present here in case you feel there is any
Speaker 3: particular point which is hampering your growth in India, do
Speaker 3: come out.
Speaker 4: We are here to listen to your problems and solve them.
Speaker 3: We are here to We are here to be the
Speaker 3: catalyst for your growth in India.
Speaker 2: Yeah, excellent, mister Methil. You're a pioneer of India's digital revolution.
Speaker 2: Much of its growth would not have happened without you.
Speaker 2: You helped build the networks on which we are now growing.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the next thing we can do.
Speaker 2: To tobo our growth and what do you think is
Speaker 2: leashing us well?
Speaker 7: I think India is generally in a great spot. You
Speaker 7: already heard that it's a matter of numbers, mathematics.
Speaker 8: We will get there to be number three.
Speaker 7: And if I put a spiritual metaphor around it, I
Speaker 7: would say it's written in the stars.
Speaker 8: The question is six seven trillion.
Speaker 7: Dollars for one point five or one point six billion
Speaker 7: people doesn't stack up. So we will get to number three.
Speaker 7: But we need to get to twenty five thirty trillion dollars.
Speaker 7: And we can quiver about the year in which we'll
Speaker 7: get there, but we have to get there, and we
Speaker 7: will get there. What do we need my tribe, business
Speaker 7: community needs an enabling environment, need a committed government, needs
Speaker 7: stable in our situation in the country.
Speaker 8: All that is available now.
Speaker 7: One factor that is coming to challenge our growth that
Speaker 7: we are currently on is massive competition that has occurred
Speaker 7: in the world today. US was a huge market for
Speaker 7: China to grow itself and they use twenty thirty years
Speaker 7: of that wonderful moment to build their factories, to build
Speaker 7: their manufacturing bases, going to deep tech, earn a tremendous
Speaker 7: amount of money to show up the economy. That opportunity
Speaker 7: is not available for India. So we will have to
Speaker 7: find our own ways and means. Thankfully, we have a
Speaker 7: huge market India, the continent of consumers, young people consuming
Speaker 7: more and more. We will be signing hopefully the EU
Speaker 7: trade deal very soon. UK is done, Australia has done,
Speaker 7: New Zealand is done. UA is done many more than
Speaker 7: the pipeline, but the big one with the US hopefully
Speaker 7: also gets done soon. We heard from Secretary Leartning this morning.
Speaker 7: America must bring everything back to manufacturing in America.
Speaker 8: That's a change.
Speaker 7: We need to deal with that new shift in the
Speaker 7: global sort of trading normes that we'll have to deal with.
Speaker 7: Give us more backing from the government, give us more freedom.
Speaker 7: We have a Prime Minister who understands the power of business.
Speaker 7: He uses the industry and industry players to scale up
Speaker 7: the country, provide more employment. The PLI scheme that has
Speaker 7: come out. I never thought during my lifetime India will
Speaker 7: be a manufacturing destination for electronics or telecom equipment. All
Speaker 7: that has changed in the last five seven eight years.
Speaker 7: Just in the last five seven eight years, massive amount
Speaker 7: of exports of Apple phones.
Speaker 8: And many other products are happening now.
Speaker 7: I remain very very confident that the energy that I
Speaker 7: see in India and now I work in Europe, I
Speaker 7: work in France, I work in the UK, and I
Speaker 7: can tell you we will continue to grow at the
Speaker 7: rapid clip of six seven eight, hopefully in some years
Speaker 7: even higher, whereas the world will be settling at half
Speaker 7: a percent one percent or minus in certain years.
Speaker 8: We have a good future for us.
Speaker 7: What can delail us is only the competitive intensity of
Speaker 7: the world play now that we need to deal with
Speaker 7: and that really lies in the hands of the Able government.
Speaker 7: How they definitely deal with the trade deals.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you mister Herrara.
Speaker 2: You've seen India through many many years and right now
Speaker 2: with Ia on the ground, from a global CEO's perspective,
Speaker 2: how does the world view India's group story?
Speaker 9: At first, I have to say that Mars make a
Speaker 9: disclaimer when talking about India young emotionally biased with India
Speaker 9: because we live in the family, my wife and their
Speaker 9: two children for six years and so I call myself
Speaker 9: Indian ambassador in the business community.
Speaker 1: So unpaid as well.
Speaker 9: It's the best disclaimer made, disclaimman made. Now, of course India,
Speaker 9: you have to be in India there is well, because
Speaker 9: it's you know, it's a big market, a jam population.
Speaker 9: It's also democracy is the English speaking company. But also
Speaker 9: at the same time India has had this having and
Speaker 9: will have the possibility to leaf rock from agriculture to
Speaker 9: the most developed AI much faster than any other company,
Speaker 9: you know, So we see, of course very positive.
Speaker 8: In the endlessence.
Speaker 2: So, minister you said in the first question, I asked
Speaker 2: you that one of the pillars is simplification, which is
Speaker 2: basically deregulation. And many times whoever you speak to, that
Speaker 2: is one of the concern areas. So can you talk
Speaker 2: a little bit more about what are you doing to
Speaker 2: make ease of business happen in India?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, in the last ten years, one thousand, six hundred laws,
Speaker 3: old antiquated statutes have been removed from the statute book.
Speaker 3: Can you give a similar example anywhere in the world.
Speaker 3: One thousand, six hundred laws I've been remote, thirty five
Speaker 3: thousand compliances have been remote.
Speaker 4: A big exercise is right.
Speaker 3: Now going to reshape the legal structure tuned to modern
Speaker 3: times because many of the laws were written in a
Speaker 3: time when the government and the political setup of that period.
Speaker 3: I'm saying of the early from nineteen fifty to nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety That was a period when the governments were basically
Speaker 3: very invert looking. They were very protectionist. They were not
Speaker 3: looking at the energy of our people. They were trying
Speaker 3: to control that energy. So all many of those laws
Speaker 3: are being rewritten now, so that's a major exercise which
Speaker 3: is going on. Second, many of the procedural things are
Speaker 3: getting changed.
Speaker 4: Mister Mithiler's witnessed.
Speaker 3: To get a telecom tower permit, it used to take
Speaker 3: two hundred and seventy days.
Speaker 4: Now it takes seven days.
Speaker 3: To get a railway terminal connected to the railway network,
Speaker 3: it used to take six years. Now it takes just
Speaker 3: about two and a half years, two and a half months.
Speaker 3: So that is the kind of simplification procedural as well
Speaker 3: as legal is happening in the country. Our entire criminal
Speaker 3: justice system, which was of eighteen hundred some vintage, so
Speaker 3: that has now totally been transformed into a new structure.
Speaker 3: The Telecom Act was of eighteen fifty four vintage. That
Speaker 3: has been replaced by a brand new twenty twenty three Act.
Speaker 3: So practically every sector we are trying to bring in
Speaker 3: a totally new legal framework or totally new procedural framework
Speaker 3: built on the technology stat that we have.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Gita, I don't know whether you know, but
Speaker 2: there's a Raji Guawa committee which is looking at deregulation.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you, is making another committee to
Speaker 2: get rid of bureaucratic red tape the best way forward?
Speaker 5: Well, I assume that this is not just a committee
Speaker 5: for its own sake, but the hope is that it's
Speaker 5: going to come up with actual actionable plans. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 5: I mean India needs a lot more deregulation. It is
Speaker 5: still in terms of ease of doing business, it is
Speaker 5: still a challenging place to do business. I'd love to
Speaker 5: hear from you in terms of how what challenges you face.
Speaker 5: So taking out more and more of the archaic rules
Speaker 5: that have held back businesses as absolutely critical. But then
Speaker 5: all other aspects of India will also have to continue
Speaker 5: in terms of the reforms will have to continue, the
Speaker 5: ones we talked about on land and labor.
Speaker 6: One of the areas I wanted.
Speaker 5: To point out which we usually don't talk about when
Speaker 5: you're talking about business development is I want to talk
Speaker 5: about pollution. Pollution is a challenge in India and if
Speaker 5: you look at the impact of pollution on the Indian economy.
Speaker 5: It is far more consequential than any impact of any tariffs.
Speaker 6: That have been put on India so far. If you
Speaker 6: look at the.
Speaker 5: Annual cost to India's GDP of the level of pollution
Speaker 5: that you have, and it's not just the effect on
Speaker 5: economic activity, also the lost and lives.
Speaker 6: I mean, the numbers are really large.
Speaker 5: Based on a World Bank study that was done I
Speaker 5: think it was published in twenty two, about one point
Speaker 5: seven million lives are lost every year in India because
Speaker 5: of pollution. That's eighteen percent of the debts in India.
Speaker 5: I think even from any international investors' perspective, who's thinking
Speaker 5: of coming in and putting up a shop in India,
Speaker 5: if you have to live there and you have the
Speaker 5: environment is not of the kind that you feel that, okay,
Speaker 5: this is going to be consequential for your health. It
Speaker 5: holds you back and obviously not to say about all
Speaker 5: the Indians that are living in this kind of pollution.
Speaker 5: So addressing that on a war footing is critical. I mean,
Speaker 5: this has to be a mission, a top mission for India.
Speaker 1: Along with deregulation. We're putting it in a line with.
Speaker 6: The regulation for India.
Speaker 1: So mister Mithil.
Speaker 2: You work in other countries you just mentioned in Europe
Speaker 2: and you've been working in US as well. What are
Speaker 2: the lessons that India can take from there for ease
Speaker 2: of doing business? You know, what are the things that
Speaker 2: we can adopt.
Speaker 7: Well, I can say certainly nothing from France the UK.
Speaker 7: It's much harder, much much harder. Oh my god, Oh
Speaker 7: my god, it's much harder. And they also have the
Speaker 7: you know, additional burden of the Brussels bureaucracy which they
Speaker 7: have to deal with.
Speaker 8: This is just multiple layers there.
Speaker 7: I would say us to the good model where business
Speaker 7: is really highly encouraged and you know, the ease of doing.
Speaker 8: Business, I would say to the good level.
Speaker 7: And of course they have examples, fine examples in Singapore
Speaker 7: and you know, EUE, et cetera. But I would echo
Speaker 7: under a mistress point view here, India has come a
Speaker 7: long way. I mean, I'm the product of I started
Speaker 7: in seventy six, so I'm yeah, it's fine. But I
Speaker 7: am telling you I've seen this plots of books, handbooks,
Speaker 7: manuals standing outside in digit TD you know, CCI, hundreds
Speaker 7: of departments getting one license to get something into the country.
Speaker 8: Oh, that is gone.
Speaker 7: Nineteen ninety two or ninety one ninety two was one
Speaker 7: big wave and I would say in the last ten
Speaker 7: years a lot has been done.
Speaker 8: Can more be done?
Speaker 7: Yes, we as business community will keep on asking for more.
Speaker 7: Transfer more faith onto us, have faith we will do
Speaker 7: the right things.
Speaker 8: We will be more compliant.
Speaker 7: Indian companies have much better governance standards today than they
Speaker 7: were in the nineties and early two thousand. I think
Speaker 7: this committee is engaged. I hope, and really I'm confident
Speaker 7: that this committee is set up for a real reason
Speaker 7: because the Prime Minister recognizes there is still much more
Speaker 7: to be done in ease of doing business, and I
Speaker 7: remain very hopeful something good will come out of this.
Speaker 2: So I'm adding on to the question Geita kind of
Speaker 2: asked you about doing business in India. Is it easier
Speaker 2: to do business in India or in China? And what
Speaker 2: would be your advice to a global CEO coming into
Speaker 2: India at this moment?
Speaker 9: At the care we are present in many different forces
Speaker 9: in India. A cares present in the source inside, engaging
Speaker 9: with many suppliers and not only producing in India for India,
Speaker 9: producing in India for the global supply chain with export
Speaker 9: We are present with the retail business where we Acquiredline
Speaker 9: where we really go fulling with our retail business model
Speaker 9: and we are present in many cities and we will
Speaker 9: grow significantly. We are also present from the energy sector.
Speaker 9: We are a big investor of renewable energy worldwhide we
Speaker 9: produce double than we consume globally in front renewable and
Speaker 9: in India we have recently announced investment of solar park
Speaker 9: in Maharashtra. But also we are present from the digital side,
Speaker 9: which digital services for the global company. But also we
Speaker 9: are acquiring also investing in Ai Indian companies, especially in
Speaker 9: last mile. So we touch many parts of the governments
Speaker 9: and we attach many part of the different ministries and
Speaker 9: so on. So on that side doing business in India
Speaker 9: half full glass?
Speaker 4: What is really good?
Speaker 9: And then what this opportunity to have emptied last and
Speaker 9: they have full It is true that it's a process
Speaker 9: of simplification. And then what it is even more important
Speaker 9: when you face the blocks, you knock the door and
Speaker 9: you are hurt. One of the I always praise the
Speaker 9: IAS officials. They are fantastic across the country because they
Speaker 9: listen to you. You meet them, you discuss and then
Speaker 9: it's important sometimes since it's a bit more complex, you
Speaker 9: need to find a way. But they are with you,
Speaker 9: so they don't ignore you. I think every time we
Speaker 9: have HASE issues, we sit down. You have to invest in,
Speaker 9: but you sit down and then you share and then
Speaker 9: your help. And I see something that I really really
Speaker 9: recognize from India. What is needed to do more in
Speaker 9: the future is try to find weaze harmonization with global standards.
Speaker 9: If I take an example production of formiture, do you
Speaker 9: know how much in the accounts for the global production
Speaker 9: of formature in the world one percent? Can we agree
Speaker 9: that India deserve more than one percent of the global production?
Speaker 8: Of course we agree on that.
Speaker 9: That's why, for example, the new legislation on QCO increasing
Speaker 9: standards and the equality, we welcome very much the intent. We
Speaker 9: are really really supporting that India increase the standards of
Speaker 9: quality because that will help us, for example, to export globally.
Speaker 9: Then the implementation has to be done in a way
Speaker 9: that it is done in a smooth way and it
Speaker 9: doesn't come as a low It comes as a.
Speaker 4: Way to support the supplier as well.
Speaker 9: So it is the implementation which is equally important and
Speaker 9: for the future, when it comes to our monistration with
Speaker 9: standard and then advice. Last question is coming from your
Speaker 9: advice from the CEO. I don't want to be pretending
Speaker 9: that I know everything, but with the expedien I would
Speaker 9: say three things. Don't come to India for the short
Speaker 9: term payback. If you can with short term payback, India
Speaker 9: doesn't need you can with the really long chain. And
Speaker 9: we are here for the really long term. We are
Speaker 9: owned by a foundation. There is no profit that goes
Speaker 9: to privateher holday. Everything has invested into the business and
Speaker 9: we have a super long time approach to long term.
Speaker 9: The second one is that engage, engage with the Indian stakeholder.
Speaker 9: Engage and in a true in a true partnership and
Speaker 9: in best time. And the third one try to understand
Speaker 9: India from inside and not from outside. You cannot come
Speaker 9: to India with your prejadgement, your biases and to pretend
Speaker 9: you need to go. I invested a lot of time personally.
Speaker 9: We didn't take Sultan Company when we set up Retelling India.
Speaker 9: I personally engage meeting customer on the show floor, customer
Speaker 9: on the homes meeting, I s official listening. So you
Speaker 9: can have to really can with a genuine interest of
Speaker 9: understanding India front within and then since will work.
Speaker 1: That's really good advice.
Speaker 2: But I'm still going to put you on the seat
Speaker 2: and ask India or China what's easier doing this.
Speaker 9: You know, we are a local company. We need to
Speaker 9: operate locally. We have to We have to operate all
Speaker 9: over the world. And then the important thing is not choosing.
Speaker 9: One other important thing is whenever you go, you have
Speaker 9: to go with your full set of values as a company.
Speaker 9: You have to go fulling, and then you have to
Speaker 9: really find a partnership.
Speaker 8: I often say that.
Speaker 9: We are in the home is the most important place
Speaker 9: in the world, and we are in the life at
Speaker 9: home business. It is because of that that we truly
Speaker 9: believe that we can help many Indian to have a
Speaker 9: wed that Lighthart home. At the same time, I am
Speaker 9: saying quite offering India is helping Ika to be better.
Speaker 9: We are learning massively wrung in there and we ty
Speaker 9: this learn into a valley.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to take that as India.
Speaker 1: Okay, youre going to come to a little bit on tariffs.
Speaker 2: India currently has one of the highest tariffs imposed by
Speaker 2: the US to any country, almost fifty percent. How is
Speaker 2: India insulating its growth story from this?
Speaker 4: We are a very resilient economy.
Speaker 3: The fundamentals macro as well as micro are very strong
Speaker 3: and that's really helped us through this turbulent period. Our
Speaker 3: exports have actually increased despite the tariffs. Our producers are
Speaker 3: finding new markets. We are growing our export sector in
Speaker 3: multiple ways. For example, electronics exports has now become the
Speaker 3: third life just exported commodity out of India after of
Speaker 3: course engineered courts and petroleum products, which was like unbelievable
Speaker 3: even ten years ago, even five years ago, this was unbelievable.
Speaker 3: We're trying to expand the market, going to new geographies
Speaker 3: and also simultaneously we are engaging with many markets, many
Speaker 3: geographies for good, balanced, healthy, mutually complimentary trade agreements. We
Speaker 3: have had with UK, we have had with Switzerland and
Speaker 3: two more countries we have had with the Yui, with Qatar,
Speaker 3: with Australia, with New Zealand another one is right now
Speaker 3: in works with Europe. So lots of engagement globally and
Speaker 3: a fundamental change which has happened in the last ten
Speaker 3: years is India has emerged as a very trusted value
Speaker 3: chain partner, not just supply chain partner. A supply chain
Speaker 3: partner would be manfacturing to your designs, manufacturing to your specs.
Speaker 3: A value chain partner will be partner to you in
Speaker 3: the journey of design, in the journey of understanding what
Speaker 3: the customers need. In the same room three years ago,
Speaker 3: when we discuss semiconductors, people thought that India will never
Speaker 3: be able to manufacture semiconductors. And when I say the
Speaker 3: value chain partner, today, the entire semiconductor industry believes that
Speaker 3: India is the most important trusted value chain partner. Right,
Speaker 3: so that feeling that positioning of the country is very
Speaker 3: important for us in the resilience in managing the turbulence
Speaker 3: that we see.
Speaker 2: Okay, Ajita, I don't know whether you caught Prime Minister
Speaker 2: Carney's speech yesterday in Davas he basically declared independence from
Speaker 2: the American dominated past. I want to ask you the
Speaker 2: question about dealing with tariffs in that context.
Speaker 5: Saw some of his uh, you know what he said.
Speaker 5: It was pretty powerful. Indeed, it was a statement about
Speaker 5: the current global economic order and how that is basically
Speaker 5: ended and that we have to you know, form new alliances.
Speaker 5: I think that was a big call to that. First
Speaker 5: of all, I don't think the movie's over right. I mean,
Speaker 5: one of the reasons that the tariffs that have been
Speaker 5: announced so far from the US has not been hugely
Speaker 5: consequential on the world is because the actual level of tariffs,
Speaker 5: and I did some resources in this with the co
Speaker 5: warth the last year there is the actual level of
Speaker 5: tariffs is a fraction of what the headline numbers and
Speaker 5: announcements are, right, So the statutory rate is about twenty
Speaker 5: four percent, the actual rate is about fourteen percent rates
Speaker 5: because there's so many exemptions and so many car abouts.
Speaker 5: So every time I hear a number, I'm like, I
Speaker 5: want to wait and see exactly where something sticks.
Speaker 6: So that's we've made. My first piece is that we
Speaker 6: just don't know where all of this is headed.
Speaker 5: What I will agree with, and I think that we
Speaker 5: don't need to wait for, is that we have permanently
Speaker 5: moved away from the previous last eighty years of the
Speaker 5: global economic order. It doesn't matter what comes next, but
Speaker 5: we're not going back to the time when we had
Speaker 5: completely close to free trade across all countries in the world.
Speaker 5: I think national security considerations, economic security considerations have become
Speaker 5: important for good reason, I think, and therefore the pure
Speaker 5: efficiency based model of we're going to buy from the
Speaker 5: cheapest source is not going to happen, and more countries
Speaker 5: are going to be looking inwards and building up their
Speaker 5: own shop, especially in sectors that are important for their security.
Speaker 5: So I think that has changed. There is no one
Speaker 5: west anymore. There never was one east.
Speaker 6: You know, there was always India, there was China, there
Speaker 6: was there.
Speaker 5: You couldn't talk about a one east, but we used
Speaker 5: to talk about a one way, which was there was
Speaker 5: the US and Europe were always together, and that's not
Speaker 5: there anymore. So I don't think there is a one
Speaker 5: west either. That doesn't mean there's going to be a
Speaker 5: whole scale breaking up, but we're not going back. This
Speaker 5: is a shift that's going to last a long time.
Speaker 5: And like I said, movies and over, so keep watching.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that the minister said actually
Speaker 2: that they are looking to do deals with other countries
Speaker 2: and trying to sort of insulate the impact of tariff.
Speaker 2: Some people are saying this gunboat capitalism of the US
Speaker 2: is leading to mega, which is make Earth grade again,
Speaker 2: versus Marga, which is make America great.
Speaker 1: Again, what do you think about that?
Speaker 5: Okay, So firstly, I do want to mention that what
Speaker 5: we saw in twenty twenty five was that not just
Speaker 5: India but China pretty much every country in the world
Speaker 5: found a different market to sell their goods to, or
Speaker 5: found a different market through which their goods went back
Speaker 5: to the US. I honestly don't think that's a sustainable
Speaker 5: strategy either. So I don't think we're in a space
Speaker 5: where this can continue and everybody can have very high
Speaker 5: levels of tariffs and India can upletic six percent tire
Speaker 5: raid and somehow, you know, India would find new markets
Speaker 5: to send their goods to. There is going to be retaliation.
Speaker 5: Europe will retaliate to all the flood of goods coming
Speaker 5: from China. Other countries will too, maybe India will be
Speaker 5: concerned about this appoint that made. So it's not a
Speaker 5: viable strategy. But what is a viable strategy is indeed
Speaker 5: having more trade agreements with other countries, which India is
Speaker 5: doing right now, European Union is doing with Latin America,
Speaker 5: South America, mor Kozour So those kinds of I think,
Speaker 5: you know, agreements moving on that front is important in
Speaker 5: terms of you know, making Earth grace Again, are you
Speaker 5: talking about the fact that we may be moving to
Speaker 5: something more sustainable.
Speaker 2: Or yes, more sustainable markets not dependent on you know,
Speaker 2: one country sort of bullying others into them.
Speaker 5: I don't know why that becomes make Earth great, but anyway,
Speaker 5: I do understand the sustainable part. So I mean, I
Speaker 5: think a lot of things have taken a bit of
Speaker 5: a back seat, and sustainability has taken a bit of
Speaker 5: a back seat. There is an inherent momentum in it
Speaker 5: that I think will continue in many parts.
Speaker 6: Of the world, including in India. That momentum exists.
Speaker 5: But if you look at what the trajectory could have
Speaker 5: been if the US was also a part of all
Speaker 5: of the climate activity, that would have been a much
Speaker 5: more stronger transition pad. But that said again, I think
Speaker 5: that you know, trainers left the station. I do think
Speaker 5: it's not just about sustainability, and it's not just about
Speaker 5: the environment. For many countries, it's energy security. Instead of
Speaker 5: having to rely on fossil fuel imports, if you can
Speaker 5: rely on sunshine in your country.
Speaker 6: And use that to produce energy, it's good.
Speaker 5: For your you know, your economic growth, it's good for
Speaker 5: job creation. So yeah, so I think that is going
Speaker 5: that will continue. Among the risks of the planet faces
Speaker 5: our climate related risks, So that's not going away. You know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of distraction right now, but we still
Speaker 5: have to deal with weather related shocks.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that geta said, and you've
Speaker 2: mentioned as well, is uncertainty.
Speaker 1: And she's saying you have a headline.
Speaker 2: They say it to particular tariff which she still waits
Speaker 2: to see. What is the effectiveness you have dealt with
Speaker 2: uncertainty and very challenging situations. What would be your advice
Speaker 2: to CEOs in India and around the world that are
Speaker 2: dealing with this kind of a challenging situation.
Speaker 7: In the end, you know, you have to make yourself
Speaker 7: stronger to get the best deal.
Speaker 8: I mean, we have seen how China was not be
Speaker 8: was not.
Speaker 7: Pushed back by the US the way they wanted to,
Speaker 7: and they quickly backed off. We have to make ourselves big.
Speaker 7: I think one great advantage that we have is we
Speaker 7: are a market for everybody in the world. It's one
Speaker 7: point five billion consuming, hungry young Indians taking more products,
Speaker 7: more services every day.
Speaker 8: It's also producing for the world.
Speaker 7: Now it will have a tremendous amount of leverage with
Speaker 7: many other parts of the world to have the right deals.
Speaker 7: Eighty three percent approximately of the world trade moves away
Speaker 7: from the US between everybody else. I don't think so
Speaker 7: she'll ever come to that that you will not trade
Speaker 7: with the US. But if it becomes completely untenable in
Speaker 7: terms of tariffs and all that, the world will react
Speaker 7: and they will find ways. As rightly pointed out, in
Speaker 7: other markets are the places. What India already needs to
Speaker 7: do is scale scaleless technologies, scaleless production, get to a
Speaker 7: point where they have consumer surpluses so they can send to.
Speaker 8: The world like China. That will take some time.
Speaker 7: The good news is that India recognized very earlier on
Speaker 7: that this is time consuming and capital intensive. You have
Speaker 7: to build more roads, more ports, more airports, more railways.
Speaker 7: This would have taken ten, fifteen to twenty years than
Speaker 7: hundreds of billions of dollars. How did India mitigate this?
Speaker 7: They quickly recognized. I would say credit to the government
Speaker 7: and the Prime minister. Get a digital highway in place
Speaker 7: of world order the best, provide enough energy to fire it,
Speaker 7: because there's no point having a digital hiveway with no energy.
Speaker 7: These two things were taken on a priority, very high priority,
Speaker 7: and on that you dropped a digital stack to connect
Speaker 7: everybody for banking, for health services, for everything else. This
Speaker 7: has provided US cushion to wait for the hard infrastructure
Speaker 7: that is being built up in the manufacturing, in the
Speaker 7: real hard infrastructure, and you can see year after year
Speaker 7: after year India is getting stronger. My own belief is
Speaker 7: eventually India will get a fair deal even from the US.
Speaker 8: I remain confident.
Speaker 2: So how have the tariff tweets affected your assent of
Speaker 2: doing business in India? Because you source and you have
Speaker 2: a marketplace as well.
Speaker 9: I know we have a big lowal supply all over
Speaker 9: the world. And then building and open at the trade
Speaker 9: is like water. If you close something, the water will
Speaker 9: find another way. But then the point here is that
Speaker 9: the point I'm building a unital The point is that
Speaker 9: I think there is too much noise now on the
Speaker 9: here and now, on the shortened impact, and we are
Speaker 9: put in too much energy as a society on.
Speaker 8: Mitigating the pain.
Speaker 9: I strongly agree with you that these are the time,
Speaker 9: these are defining times. These are the time where you
Speaker 9: can build a new competitive advantage, where you can live
Speaker 9: rock as a company as a country. Let's take one
Speaker 9: example where we are heavily investing and at the same
Speaker 9: time we are advocating. Is the marriage in between sustainability
Speaker 9: and affordability. We're investing in circularity and you know, the
Speaker 9: more you invest there, the more use can secure. A
Speaker 9: is good for the planet. B is good for the
Speaker 9: wallet because people, many people today are struggling. So day
Speaker 9: two of the month, almost the all money is gone
Speaker 9: is gone.
Speaker 8: So it's good for the people.
Speaker 9: But also it builds independence in the It's not only
Speaker 9: an energy but on trade.
Speaker 8: What does it take that.
Speaker 9: India produce with a waste that is created in India?
Speaker 9: Because if you have that approach, you start to depend
Speaker 9: less on global trade and the same will happen with
Speaker 9: other countries. So we need to find wing wing opportunity
Speaker 9: where we really decide not to put the money in
Speaker 9: mitigating the pain, but putting the money and really live
Speaker 9: rowing as a competitive advantage. And I think India is
Speaker 9: one of the country where we can. India has proven
Speaker 9: Indian impressed me. I was living in India when the
Speaker 9: other hard care identity got implemented. More than nine hundred
Speaker 9: million people got it. Over night, the election, nine hundred
Speaker 9: people vout it in one month with no disruption, doesn't
Speaker 9: happening in the country. And then the interface payment the demonetization.
Speaker 9: So India has proven that when things come to whether
Speaker 9: it can really lift rock significantly. So what does it
Speaker 9: say that Indiana THERESI opportunity to really be the leader
Speaker 9: on sustainability and affordability because it comes with these three
Speaker 9: big benefits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have four minutes and I do want to
Speaker 2: get into AI, so you will have to keep your
Speaker 2: answers with short so that I can, you know, give
Speaker 2: everyone a chance on this. Right now, the AI race
Speaker 2: seems to be between the US and China. Do you
Speaker 2: read that correctly or does India have a place in
Speaker 2: this race.
Speaker 3: India is making very significant progression all the five layers
Speaker 3: of AI stack. We have already become one of the
Speaker 3: largest service AI based services provider to the world. Entire
Speaker 3: ety industry has pivoted from software service to AI based solutions.
Speaker 3: Are the second layer, the model layer. Our stack of
Speaker 3: sovereign models is progressing very well. We must understand today
Speaker 3: that ninety five percent of the work can be done
Speaker 3: with a small fifty billion parameter model You don't require
Speaker 3: a trillion parameter model to do the things that you
Speaker 3: need in your day to day life and in your enterprises.
Speaker 3: Our focus on semiconductor industry, the third layer is very strong.
Speaker 3: We are investing seventy billion dollars in the fourth layer,
Speaker 3: the infrastructure layer, and energy, which is.
Speaker 4: The fifth layer. We have opened it up.
Speaker 3: They opened the entire energy sector, the nuclear energy sector,
Speaker 3: to private sector so that we can have a sustainable,
Speaker 3: clean energy for the.
Speaker 1: AI world GITA.
Speaker 2: AI is affecting jobs encoding in call centers, which is
Speaker 2: very big for India. Do you think we can make
Speaker 2: this pivot like the minister is suggesting.
Speaker 6: It will take a.
Speaker 5: Directed, conscious effort to make that switch happened.
Speaker 6: It's not going to happen very quickly.
Speaker 5: Indeed, you know business process outsourcing for which India was
Speaker 5: a big beneficiary of that is going to be impacted
Speaker 5: by AI. These call centers, as you mentioned, coders encoding
Speaker 5: in general going to be heavily affected. Now, India does
Speaker 5: have the plus that it does have a good digital
Speaker 5: infrastructure which it continues to build on. It has a
Speaker 5: lot of skilled engineers, an IT sector that supplies the world,
Speaker 5: so that gives it a good holding, but we're going
Speaker 5: to have to find ways of coming up with new
Speaker 5: kinds of jobs. That again comes back to the original
Speaker 5: point about skilling up the workforce making sure that they
Speaker 5: are able to benefit from AI in terms of you know,
Speaker 5: if you look at the statistics about how much is
Speaker 5: India exposed to it, how much I mean does labor
Speaker 5: course is exposed to AI, it's about twenty six percent.
Speaker 5: The average for the world is forty percent. That's just
Speaker 5: a reflection of the fact that's still a very large
Speaker 5: number of Indians work in agriculture, right, so that transition
Speaker 5: has still not happened.
Speaker 6: Productivity in agriculture has.
Speaker 5: Not gone up enough to push people out of agriculture
Speaker 5: into industry and into services, so that transition is still ongoing.
Speaker 5: So there is some there is less exposure to AI
Speaker 5: in that sense for the entire.
Speaker 6: Labor market as a whole.
Speaker 5: But like every country in the world, I think this
Speaker 5: is going to be an important challenge. India is already
Speaker 5: capital intensive for the reasons that I mentioned earlier. If
Speaker 5: we end up with services also becoming capital intensive in India,
Speaker 5: then there is going to be a problem with enough
Speaker 5: job creation. And here labor market flexibility is again super important.
Speaker 1: So we just have a few seconds.
Speaker 2: But I want to get into it because you offered
Speaker 2: perplexity free to your entire mobile network, right, I want
Speaker 2: to ask you what your view on AI is Because
Speaker 2: we are offering pervasive access to our market to foreign
Speaker 2: AI players.
Speaker 1: How do you see that?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I think India will find this very frugal ways of
Speaker 7: getting to AI development side. I think we have the minds,
Speaker 7: we have the brains and as the Ministry rightly pointed out,
Speaker 7: there will be new models which will not require trillion
Speaker 7: dollar commitment but maybe tens of billions of dollars.
Speaker 8: India will do that parallelly. As user of AI, we.
Speaker 7: Have now injected in various form factors in our business.
Speaker 7: Spam is one billions of messages, billions of calls from
Speaker 7: protecting our customers from fraud. Our whole network, you know,
Speaker 7: from design to management is run on AI. Now Agent
Speaker 7: TAKEI is pervasive all over. Yes, some call centers are
Speaker 7: getting you know, affected and some different you know jobs
Speaker 7: will need to be found for those. But as a country,
Speaker 7: I would say India as well positioned to make good
Speaker 7: use of AI for its productivity automation and improvement in economy.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm complet out of time. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to be able to give you the question on AI.
Speaker 2: I'm going to conclude. I think this has been a
Speaker 2: very good news session. I think everyone agrees that India
Speaker 2: is a force for good and it's written in the stars,
Speaker 2: and I hope that this Goldilock's fairy tale has a
Speaker 2: happily ever after.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, all of you.
Speaker 4: Thank you