India’s focus on infrastructure empowering the economy: Shri Goyal

India’s focus on infrastructure is empowering the economy and giving it a fillip, said Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles while addressing the Inaugural session of ‘3rd India Debt Capital Market Summit 2023 – Onwards & Upwards’.

The Union Minister said that massive investments both from the government and from the private sector, directed towards infrastructure is boosting the infrastructural capabilities of the country. He said competitive source of financing is attracting investments from those who are looking for greater safety. He said the stock market is also hitting a 4 trillion mark for the first time and India being amongst the top five global markets has huge opportunities. He pointed out that the country is the fifth largest economy in the world and the fastest growing economy at 7.6%, this quarter. “The world trusts India today,” Shri Goyal said mentioning that the country stands at the cusp of a very bright future as a trusted partner of the world and as a vibrant democracy where people recognize and respect the rule of law.

Shri Goyal said that in the Amrit Kal, we dream of a Viksit Bharat where we are on our journey towards developed and prosperous India. He said India will add $30 trillion to our 3.7 trillion by 2047.

Shri Goyal said a resilient debt capital market will be the catalyst for innovation, entrepreneurship and infrastructure development. He noted that massive urbanization will happen over the next few decades even as Tier 2 cities are also going to become metropolitan cities. Rural Areas incomes are rising, raising spending power across the country. Futuristic sectors like AI, semiconductors, electric vehicles, will be powering our future. Green and sustainable energy will be the way forward and the capital markets and debt markets are playing their role in our energy transition to a low carbon economy. Shri Goyal urged the corporate world to Invest in India without the fear of missing out.

The Minister said between 2010 and 2013, there was weak macro-economic fundamentals, foreign exchange crisis and FCNR bonds were raised in 2013 paying a significantly higher interest rate on foreign currency borrowings, inflation used to persistent at elevated levels of 10%to 12%, bank debts was growing irrationally, fiscal deficits were high. It was then in 2014 when Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi took over.  He said that PM was very focused on ease of doing business and reduction of compliance burden, decriminalizing several laws, removing some of the redundant laws from the statute book. “It was a holistic plan, which helped India double its foreign exchange reserves in the last 10 years,” he said adding on that the country is in a sweet spot today where it can be confident that for many years to come, it won’t have a crisis of the sort that was seen in 2013.

Shri Goyal said that India has been able to increase exports of goods and services, almost 55% – from 500 billion in 2021 to 776 billion last year. He said that with two conflicts going on around the world and there is a prospect of recession in the developed economies. Still, he said, he is confident of growth in the export numbers even in the current year.