BackNarendra Modi, Arun Jaitley to discuss jobs, ease of doing business with CEOs at 2-day meet
Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley will discuss ways of creating more jobs and making it easier to do business during a two-day meet with more than 200 CEOs
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Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley will discuss ways of creating more jobs, making it easier to do business and raising income levels during a two-day brainstorming session with more than 200 chief executive officers that started on Monday.
Individual ministries will take suggestions forward and share those relevant for states with them, a person informed about the meeting said.
Modi’s interaction with “champions of change" will cover six different themes— creating a new India by 2022, Make in India, cities of tomorrow, world class infrastructure, doubling farmers income and reforming the financial sector.
Modi is consulting chief executives of start-ups as well as established firms, at a time the country needs to stimulate private investment to create more jobs and revive the manufacturing sector. High level of bad debts in the banking system and excess industrial capacity are short-term challenges for private investment to pick up. Capital goods production, seen as a proxy for investments into manufacturing, contracted 3.9% in the April to June period in the current fiscal as compared to a robust 13% growth in the same time a year ago.
Last week, Modi consulted 212 start-up entrepreneurs on ways to take the economy forward by forging partnerships between them and the government. He urged entrepreneurs working in the same industry to collectively discuss and present suggestions, which he assured would be taken up by the relevant ministry.
During the deliberations, CEOs will be divided into groups of 30-35 based on the core idea on which they will work. CEOs will be assisted by a public policy specialist from the government side.
The prime minister is expected to meet the participants informally on Monday evening and is expected to address them today after listening to all the suggestions.
India—ranked 130 in the World Bank’s Doing Business survey for financial year 2016-17—is targeting an ambitious 90th rank for 2017-18 and 30th rank by 2020. Moreover, the government is grappling with the issue of creating more jobs.
The Economic Survey-Volume II released this month pointed out that the service sector contributed 53.2% to the economy in 2014 in terms of gross value added, but only accounted for 28.6% of jobs.
Gautam Kumra, managing director of McKinsey India; Rahul Munjal, chairman and managing director of Hero Future Energies; Vineet Rai, founder of Aavishkaar –Intellecap Group; Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, managing director and CEO of Bandhan Bank; and Sanjay Agarwal, managing director of AU Small Finance Bank are expected to attend the event, according to people aware of the development.
N. Bhaskar Rao, a Delhi-based political analyst, said the government was focusing on investment in services. “The government is focusing on innovative services like application of technology, tourism and health which will trigger employment and productivity," added Rao.
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