Indian Inc. to focus on Infra and Manufacturing as they meet PM

Indian Industry leaders like Reliance Industry’s Chairman, Tata Group head Cyrus Mistry, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, Adani Group head Gautam Adani, Essar Group head Shashi Ruia, Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani, ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattachary are meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi today amid the threat of global slowdown looming large over Indian economy. This meeting is also crucial from the point of view of fact that on one hand Chinese economy is under acute pressure of slowdown and on the other hand US Federal Reserve can now increase the interest rates any moment, which will put severe pressure on Indian economy as money flow may be hindered to India.

Also Indian Industry is asking for more interest cuts by RBI in forthcoming monetary policy review, so that cost of money will be lowered as many industries, especially in the infrastructure, housing, manufacturing space are reeling under huge debt burden and debt servicing has become quite difficult. Interestingly RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and Niti Aayog Arvind Panagariya Industry sources informed that industry leader will aggressively push their demand for lower interest rates and some kind of stimulus package to fight slowdown as given by government post 2008. Focus of today’s meeting would be on pushing infrastructure development and debottlenecking of the stalled projects by the government so that economic activity would start at the ground level.

Manufacturing sector companies like Automobiles, Steel, metals, etc. are also demanding more incentives amid global slowdown and threat of cheaper import assault. Sources in the government informed that government is seriously deliberating some incentives into manufacturing and infrastructure space, like interest subvention, lower taxes etc. Also a focus would also be there to improve the sentiments as Bourses have already entered a bear phase so some announcement can come soon from the government.