India committed to remain a reliable global partner, PM Modi tells WEF

Addressing the global forum via video conferencing, Modi said, “India’s capabilities in innovation, technology adaptation and entrepreneurship make India an ideal global partner,” adding, “This is the best time to invest in India.”

The youth in India, he said, is achieving new heights of entrepreneurship. Against a mere 100 start-ups in 2014, India has more than 60,000 start-ups today, out of which 80 are unicorns, with more than 40 unicorns emerging in 2021 itself, he pointed out.

India, he said, is tackling another wave of the pandemic with caution and confidence and moving ahead in the economic sphere with many hopeful results. As a strong democracy, India has given a bouquet of hope to mankind with its unwavering faith in technology that is empowering 21st century and talent and temperament of Indians, the prime minister said.

And as the Corona pandemic spread globally, India saved many lives by exporting essential medicines and vaccines by following its vision of ‘One Earth, One Health’. India is world’s third largest pharmaceutical producer and is considered ‘pharmacy to the world’, he added.

India, he said, is providing record number of software engineers. More than 5 million software developers are working in India. He informed that India has third largest number of unicorns today. More than 10,000 start-ups have registered during the last six months. 

He also talked about the India’s huge, safe and successful digital payments platform, which, he said, recorded more than 4.4 billion transections in December 2021 alone through its Unified Payments Interface. The prime minister also talked about the measures of enhancing Ease of Doing Business and reducing government interference in business matters.

India, he said, has simplified corporate tax rates, making them the most competitive in the world. India has deregulated areas like drones, space, geo-spatial mapping and has brought reforms in the outdated telecom regulation related with the IT and BPO sectors. “We did away with more than 25,000 compliances in the year gone by”, he added.

Indicating India’s growing attractiveness as a partner, the prime minister said, even as he highlighted that when the world was focusing on interventions like quantitative easing during the Corona pandemic, India was strengthening economic reforms. He listed strides in physical and digital infrastructure like optical fibre in 6 lakh villages, $1.3 trillion investment in connectivity related infrastructure, goal of generation of $80 billion through asset monetisation and Gatishakti National Master Plan to bring all the stakeholder on the single platform to infuse new dynamism to the seamless connectivity of people, goods and services. 

India is not only focusing on easing the processes in its quest for self-reliance, it is also incentivising investment and production, Modi told the forum. Most clear manifestation of that is the $26 billion dollar worth of Production Linked Incentive schemes in 14 sectors, he said. He stressed that India is making policies keeping in mind the goals of next 25 years. In this time period, the country has kept the goals of high growth and saturation of welfare and wellness. This period of growth will be green, clean, sustainable as well as reliable, the prime minister emphasized.

Finally, the prime minister pointed to the challenges that modern life-style causes for climate. “ ‘Throw away’ culture and consumerism has deepened the climate challenge. It is imperative to rapidly move from today’s ‘take-make-use-dispose’ economy to a circular economy”, he stressed. 

Referring to the Mission LIFE that he proposed at the CoP26 conference, the prime minister said that making LIFE into a mass movement can be a strong foundation for P-3, ie, ‘Pro Planet People’. LIFE, ie,. ‘Lifestyle for Environment’, is a vision of resilient and sustainable lifestyle that will come handy in dealing with the climate crisis and other unpredictable challenges of the future. Modi also told the forum about India’s impressive record in achieving the climate target well in advance of the target dates.