India to be engine of growth: Jaishankar

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 6

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is confident that as India comes out of the second wave, it will be a more dynamic and friendlier business destination and contribute to being an engine of growth for the global economy.

Addressing the inaugural session of the first Indo-Pacific Business Summit, the Minister saw international cooperation to be the key.

Indo-Pacific, he said, represents a return of history. “A seamless and integrated space was disconnected decades ago by the strategy of the day. Today, we are quite sensibly seeing the landscape for what it really is. Indo-Pacific reflects the reality of globalisation, the emergence of multi-polarity and the benefits of rebalancing,” he observed.

The Minister flagged three issues that the pandemic has brought to the fore: the salience of health, the power of the digital, and the importance of building or rebuilding greener.

The Covid may have slowed the building of the global economy and the promotion of economic recovery, it has not stopped it. “This is, therefore, an occasion to reflect, perhaps introspect on how to build greener,” he observed.

On agriculture, he said the Government’s effort to empower farmers and enable freer trade has been matched by a stronger commitment to post-harvest infrastructure. “And across 13 key sectors, performance-linked initiatives promise to upscale manufacturing. Bold measures have just recently been taken to promote tourism. And not least, in making it much easier to do business,” he observed.