Finance Minister Asks India-US Business Leaders to Play Major Role in Building and Strengthening the Relations Between the Two Nations
China’s Yuan Policy Not to Hit Indian Economy Adversely: FM
The Finance Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee said that business leaders of both India and US can play major role in further strengthening the relations and cooperation between the two countries. The Finance Minister was having an interactive session with chief executive officers and leaders of business community of both the countries in Washington yesterday on the eve of Joint India-US Business CEOs Forum Meeting to be held today. The interactive session was organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in order to discuss and formulate the issues to be discussed in the Joint CEOs Forum Meeting today.
Speaking on the occasion, the Finance Minister said that there is a need for close cooperation with US, not only in finance and trade but also in other areas like agriculture, insurance, health including clinical research and education among others. The finance minister said that in order to prevent any deceleration in growth process in the current global situation, it was necessary for him to generate domestic demand by injecting stimulus packages equivalent to 3% of GDP in 2009-10 and has to strike a balance between demand for external and domestic sectors. The Finance Minister said that he had partially roll-backed certain stimulus packages during the current financial year but not in favour of complete rollback and full exit at this stage because of the continuation of the international financial crisis. The finance minister said that we have been able to achieve domestic savings up to 34-36% of GDP. He said that India is on the path of fiscal consolidation and wants to bring down the fiscal deficit to 5.5% in the current year and 4.1% by the end of year 2011-12.
Replying to a question, the Finance Minister said that India is happy over China’s announcement for its flexible policy as far its currency, Yuan is concerned and it will not hit the Indian economy adversely. He is hopeful that China will follow the policy keeping in view the interest of the world economy. On this occasion, Indian Ambassador to US Ms. Meera Shankar, business leaders from India including Mr. Pawan Munjal of Hero Honda, Mr. S. Gopalakrishnan CEO and MD Infosys Technologies, Ms. Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Chairman and MD, Biocon and Ms. Preetha Redddy, MD, Apollo Hospitals were present among others alongwith business leaders from the US side.
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