Press Release
“INDIA WILL FUEL NEXT INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION”: MALDIVES PRESIDENT
Chennai, January 23, 2010: “India has the intellectual capacity, strength and ability to fuel the next industrial revolution. Countries in Asia need India’s success and we all should partner with India in its efforts to take on global challenges,” said His Excellency Mohamed Nasheed, President of Maldives. He added that Indian companies are making big contribution to the development of Malaysian economy by investing especially in its tourism, renewable energy, infrastructure and educational sector.
Delivering the Keynote Address at the Inaugural Session of The Partnership Summit 2010 – “Global Partnerships: Meeting Challenges”, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the Government of India, Mr Nasheed said the world is in the brink of the next industrial revolution – the one based on renewable energy. “India is already in the forefront of developing renewable energy. However, it should evolve startegies to protect itself from the fluctuating oil prices, as countries that do not understand renewable energy, will not be the leaders of the bold, brave new future.” He pointed out that Iceland has done remarkably well in tapping the potential of renewable energy and Maldives is working towards making it economy carbon neutral.
He said that since Maldives voted for multi-party democracy, the country is taking bold initiatives targeting: 1) financial prudence to bring down budget deficits, 2) privatisation – encouraging privatisation, public-private enterprises, and 3) cutting out red tapism and bureaucracy – “We believe in business over bureaucracy,” he said. The President said that the government is determined to reduce its employees base by one third in the next couple of years - at present, the government employs 10% of the population. The people going out of civil services will be given training on new skills for them to promote new businesses. the government’s role has to be in preventing market failures, environmental pollution and ensuring safety net for people, and not in business,” he emphasized. Malaysia is introducing pension schemes for its people and is implementing universal health insurance.
Reading out the Special Address of Dato Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mr Dato Mystapa Bin Mohamed, Minister of International Trade and Industry, Malaysia, said that there is a huge potential for increasing trade and investment ties between Malaysia and India. “The global trade in goods and services will begin to grow as countries recover from the financial crisis. Malaysia and India will benefit from this,” he said and added that Malaysia is committed to elevating itself to a high-income, high-value and knowledge-driven economy.
Talking about globalised trade regimes, he said that developed countries and developing countries have different needs and priorities. “Industrialised countires and developing nations are on different development trajectories and their needs and priorities differ,” he said and emphasized that countries must be allowed the flexibility and space to determine their economic course. “We must work towards a rules-based system where wealthy nations will not overpower developing nations and where rules facilitate growth and greater economic integration. Only then can the benefits of globalization be more inclusive and the potential of our people unlocked.”
He cautioned that globalisation is a value-free process – it does not distinguish between beneficial change and change that improvishes the human condition. Therefore in recent times, there is a call for a rethink of globalisation, for a reassessment of its real cost and benefit. Governments must seek out their own policies to makee globalisation more responsive to the isssues that ultimately matter – issues such as poverty, health, social safety nets and the environmnet. “Malaysia would like to see globalisation with values. We want to embrace the good that globalisation ca nbring, but at the same time ensure that the benefits and opportunities accrue to all,” he said.
Quoting Amartya Sen, the Minister said that any economic activity should have the purpose of improving the human condition. “Globalisation makes sense only if it alleviates poverty and improves human lives. Herein lies the challenge for governments as they work through bilateral, regional and multilateral for a towards greater integration of the global economy,” he added.
In his Special Address, Mr Anand Sharma, Chairman, The Partnership Summit 2010 and Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India emphasized that the global trade regime should also reflect the aspirations of people living in developing nations. “There should be rules-based, fair, equitable multilateral trade agreements that reflect the legitimate aspirations of development of poor and vulnerable economies,” he said and added that the developing countries should re-energise the Doha round and the next round of WTO talks should be dedicated to development. The global organizations and forums such as UN, World Bank, IMF, etc should reflect and represent the world including countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Minister said that there is a need for more cooperation at regional level. “Economic integration among regions is very important. America has done it, Europe has done it,” he said and reiterated that India is trying to strengthen the regional, economic cooperation among regions of South Asia and Asia. “We are entering into Free Trade Agreements with ASEAN countries and signing agreements related to services and investment with European Union, Japan, Africa and Latin America, because we believe that there must be robust integration and the growth have to be inclusive.”
He pointed out that India is spending US$ 550 billion in its current Five Year Plan on infrastructure development. Quoting studies by international organizations, India is expected to spend 1.5 trillion in the ten years, after the current Five Year Plan period. He said that in the age of technological revolution, many countries, including India have moved fast and leapfroged. Millions of people have come out of poverty. Their disposable income has increased. “People are able to improve their living standards and educate their children. However, we must eradicate poverty – globally over one billion people do not have food security. Globalisation should benefit all – no region, no section should feel that they are victims and not the beneficiaries of the sweeping changes. Wealth created should be redistributed – otherwise, it will become a zero-sum game. While we welcome Intellectual Property Regime, when it comees to tackling the challenges such as hunger, the intellectual of human kind should be used for finding solutions to masses and not for few,” he said.
In his address, Mr M K Stalin, Deputy Chief Minister, Government of Tamil Nadu, said that the State is one among the top three fastest growing states in India. It has over 90 special economic zones, about 21,260 factories – its gross industrial output is about 1,90,000 crore. The literacy rate of the State is 78%. He said that the Government of Tamil Nadu is keen to protect its ecology, natural resources, while ensuring inclusive and equitable growth.
Tamil Nadu is among the top three states in attracing foreign direct investment – in the recent years, it has been attracting about US$ 8-9 billion every year. The investment climate is buoyant. In the last three years, the State has attracted investment worth over Rs 6 lakh crore through about 1250 projects, out of which over 630 projects with about Rs 2,80,000 crore investment are in various stages of execution.
Delivering his address Mr Venu Srinivasan, President, CII, said that the year 2010 should mark the global countries set agenda for future and grapple with long term issues, post financial crisis, world is living in the shadow of climate change, food and energy security. He said that no country can be insular in its views and the global village has become a reality thanks to information technology, video conferencing. India has close economic ties with ASEAN and SAARC countries and shares common perspectives in democracy, foreign affairs, defence. He said that the economic centre of gravity is shifting to Asia – especially China and India. This will have greater ramifications for the world in food and energy security.
He said that Tamil Nadu is scripting a success story in industrial development in recent years. Acquiring land for industrial development is not an issue in Tamil Nadu, as the State Governme nt is having a transparent way of acquiring and allocating lands for industries. In the last three years, the capacity addition in automobile industry has resulted in expansion of production by half a million cars. L&T is in the process of setting up its manufacturing base in Coimbatore and companies like Videocon are establishing their presence in a major way in Madurai and Rameshwaram.
Mr Hari Bhartia, Vice President, CII and Vice Chairman, Jubilant Technologies Limited provided the closing remarks and earlier, Mr C R Swaminathan, Chairman, CII-Southern Region and Chief Executive, PSG Institutions, provided the welcome address.

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No Heavy Commitments

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Do not make heavy commitments throughout your adult life – expensive marriages, costly children education and 30-year home mortgage, etc.

Pension and retirement security

There is a book called “Coming up Short”, by Alicia Munnell of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Following are some of the author’s observations:
1) The role for Social Security benefits is getting smaller; Medicare premiums are increasing, and [employee and government-sponsored] pensions are disappearing – all these make will make the retirement of younger workers far more difficult than those of current and past retirees.
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