North can play key role for double-digit growth: CII

Malvinder Mohan Singh, Chairman, CII Invest North 2016, talks to Sanjeev Sharma 

The northern states need to leverage their true potential in terms of entrepreneurial spirit, skilled manpower, consumer base, physical and social infrastructure, agriculture, raw material and market base, says Malvinder Mohan Singh, Chairman, CII Invest North 2016 and Executive Chairman, Fortis Healthcare.

Q: What has been the focus of CII Invest North 2016?

A: The states of Northern Region contribute as much as 26% share in the national GDP with 32% share in the country’s population. Around 64% working age population resides in North, constituting of almost 31% of geographical area.

Therefore, the investments flowing into the region can be significantly higher given its size and potential. CII has always believed that North can play an instrumental role towards the larger objective of double-digit economic growth by attracting investments. However, to achieve this, the northern states need to leverage their true potential in terms of entrepreneurial spirit, skilled manpower, consumer base, physical and social infrastructure, agriculture, raw material and market base.

CII Invest North 2016 aims to showcase the untapped investment potential of these states. Against this backdrop, CII recently organised 5th edition of Invest North at New Delhi. This year’s focus was on leveraging the flagship national missions and programmes like ‘Make in India’, Start-up India, National Solar Mission, Digital India & E-commerce, Cooperative & Competitive Federalism.

Q: What has been the response of potential investors?

A: One of the major objectives of Invest North is to facilitate connecting businesses/ investors with the state governments and Central agencies. This is done through one-to-one meetings between corporates and senior government officials. This year, there were around 90 such meetings with the governments of Haryana, Himachal, J&K, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. The engagements with the state governments have been encouraging, and we expect positive outcome from these interactions.

Q: How are the states in the region gearing up for investments?

A: In order to promote an investor-friendly environment, the state governments in the region have undergone a whole gamut of administrative and procedural reforms to bring quick decision making, reduce red tape, provide single-window clearance etc to encourage private investments.

In the ongoing Business Reform Action Plan of Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), states from the northern region have performed exceedingly well. Uttarakhand and Rajasthan are high on implementation with more than 90% implementation scorecard. These two states along with four other states — Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have scored more than 60%. 

Q: Is there a jump in investor interest due to reforms initiated by the government?

A: Since 1991, the regulatory environment in terms of foreign investment has been consistently eased to make it investor-friendly. In addition, the measures taken by the government are directed towards opening new sectors for FDI (like defence and insurance sector), increasing the sectoral limit in existing sectors, simplifying the FDI policy and easing out regulations governing FDI. This is evident from the increase in FDI in the country from 2013 to 2016 which is almost 1.5 times higher than 2013-14.

A similar trend is seen in the northern states where the FDI has increased considerably over the years from 2013-16. According to DIPP, during 2015-16, about 38% of the total FDI inflows into the country were attracted by the northern states. 

Q: What reforms are needed at the state level to attract more capital?

A: Progressive steps like GST are required to improve the business climate.  The state government needs to focus and bring reforms in the critical sectors like healthcare and education to improve the productivity and quality of life.

Q: What impact will GST rollout have on the economy?

A: The GST is a revolutionary step in the field of indirect taxation. GST integration will help improve economic efficiency and effectiveness.