Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a keynote address at the ‘India Ideas Summit 2020’ today and urged US firms to chose India as their investment destination.
Delivering his keynote address at the India Ideas Summit 2020, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on Wednesday said this is the best time to invest in India and US firms must make use of this opportunity for mutual growth of the two countries.
In his address, PM Modi said today India is “emerging as a land of opportunities”. “The US-India friendship has scaled many heights in the past. Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic.”
“When markets are open, when opportunity is high and options are many, can optimism be far behind! You can see the optimism when India rises in key business ratings. Particularly the Ease of Doing Business ratings of the World Bank,” PM Modi said in his address.
The summit is being organised by the US-India Business Council. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the formation of the US-India Business Council and the theme for this year’s Summit is ‘Building a Better Future’.
Beside PM Modi, other key speakers at the virtual Summit include India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, among others. The Summit will witness discussions on areas including India-US cooperation and future of the relation between the two counties in a post pandemic world.
Highlights of PM Modi’s speech:
1) Addressing the Summit, PM Narendra Modi said it has taken a global pandemic to remind us how important resilience is. PM Modi said the recent experience has taught the world that the global economy has been too focused on efficiency and optimisation. “Efficiency is a good thing. But, on the way, we forgot to focus on something equally important. That is resilience against external shocks,” PM Modi said.
2) PM Modi said, today there is global optimism towards India because “India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options”. “Let me elaborate. India celebrates openness in people and in governance. During the last six years, we have made many efforts to make our economy more open and reform oriented. Reforms have ensured increased competitiveness, enhanced transparency, expanded digitisation, greater innovation and more policy stability,” he said.
3) PM Modi said today India is an emerging destination of new opportunities. “Let me give you one example of the tech sector. Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It said for the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users. Opportunities in technology also include opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G, Big data analytics, Quantum computing, Block-chain and Internet of things,” he said.
4) Speaking about the opportunities in the agriculture sector, PM Modi said the country has recently carried out “historic reforms” in this sector. “There are investment opportunities in agricultural inputs and machinery, agriculture supply chain management, ready-to-eat items, fisheries and organic produce,” he said.
5) Stressing upon the India-US ties, PM Modi said there are few better partners than the United States of America and India. “India and the US are two vibrant democracies with shared values. We are natural partners. The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale,” the Prime Minister said in his address to the India Ideas Summit 2020.
He said every year India is reaching record highs in foreign direct investment (FDI). “Each year is significantly higher than the earlier one. FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were $74 billion. This is an increase of 20 per cent from the year before that,” he said.
Besides these, the Prime Minister invited American firms to invest in sectors like healthcare, energy, infrastructure, civil aviation, defence, finance and insurance, space, among others.
Stressing that India and the US are vibrant democracies and “natural partners”, PM Modi said this is the best time for American firms to invest in India.
