21 January 2023
Indo-Global Entrepreneurship Forum - 2023
Venue: The Lalit Connaught Place, New Delhi
Padmini Kolhapure
From 5G to 5T Tracking Trade & Technology as India’s pathway to $5 trillion economy
On February 1, 2023, our Indian Union Finance Minister Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2023-24. In this budget of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s NDA government in its second term, the Government is expected to announce a slew of more significant economic reforms to bolster the engines of economic growth.
Already the Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said that India will become a $5 trillion economy by 2025, and the third largest economy in the world by 2027.
Even the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has also said that ‘India has made powerful efforts to grow its economy and emerge as a higher-income country’ expressing hope that it willbe the fastest growing major economy in the world this year with at least 7% growth despite the challenges posed by the Ukraine crisis.
5G has been launched and Jio is rapidly progressing to roll out its services across the country. According to Billionaire Mukesh Ambani his Telecom firm Reliance Jio will launch 5G services across the country by December 2023.
Naturally, this will accelerate India’s digital ecosystem, which policymakers acknowledge that it will contribute at least $1 trillion to the sought after $5 trillion economy. And if we go by the words of another Indian billionaire and chairman of Adani Group Mr. Gautam Adani reckons its India’s destiny to boast a $45 trillion stock market valuation.
Is PM Modi succeeding on a scale necessary to morph India into the economy the nation’s business leaders are seeking? India is also experiencing something of a tech “unicorn” boom, with a growth rate of 7%, surpassing the U.K. leaving far more developed economies like Japan in the dust.
But still there are several hurdles. On one side there is a drop in the tightening global monetary policy, and on the other side the Russia-Ukraine war is continuing, leaving India to feel the heat with a slowdown in exports, industrial activity and soaring inflation. In line with the World Bank projections for FY23, even the IMF slashed India’s growth forecast to 6.8% last month from the earlier 7.4%.
This month on Dec ist, 2022, India took the baton of Presidency of G20 from Indonesia, all eyes are on us, whether we are also going to follow Indonesia’s theme slogan of ‘Recover Together, Recover Stronger’ for better national and global resilience or not.
To Recover Together, we will have to build robust partnerships and collaborations for a strong and inclusive post-pandemic recovery and focus on taking Youth into Action, because they are already in confidence of the ruling Government, but badly facing unemployment. We must come out with plans to create massive employment opportunities for the youth.
This can be done by increased investments in people skilling and upskilling, which will bring both motivation and job security. As a country with the world’s youngest population this can be done by providing ‘Ease of Doing Business’ to Start Ups and Young Entrepreneurs. There are no dearth of Jobs in the sectors like IT, e- commerce, and telecom, among others, but Government support will be be necessary.
Rather than keeping necessity of several documents such as PAN, TAN, UDYAM AADHAR and GST with obligation of filing quarterly, India must focus on providing more ‘Ease of Doing Business’ to Micro, Small and Medium level Industries of the MSME sector
which plays a pivotal role in contributing to the national economy with 63 million enterprises employing about 111 million people and contributing about 45% of manufacturing outputs and 40% of total exports in the country.
One Card for All Industries, uniform minimum floor wage for workers across small and medium-sized businesses and the unorganised sector, easy Regulations, easy Tax Filing, fastest and safe payment systems will certainly accelerate India’s sustainable opportunities to open up for what is estimated to grow into a booming economy of 23.5 million independent workers by 2029-30, and help India to prosper into a nurturing nation for all its enterprising people.
According to media reports, an estimated “Rs 10.7 lakh crore is stuck as delayed payments to MSMEs in India, amounting to 6% of India’s GVA (Gross Value Added) for FY 2020-21.” The current mechanisms involve informal follow- ups, with less than 1% of the eligible enterprises, representing only 1.3% of the delayed payments pool, using the MSME Samadhaan portal for formally recording delays, the report says.
Since the mainstream and vernacular media is not being made part of any of the Government initiatives, and there are no thoughtful media advisers in the ministries, many of the programmes, schemes and initiatives launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BUP Government in the Centre are not reaching to the grassroots level.
No doubt, the Bureau of Out-Reach (BOC) department under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India is pumping hundreds of crore Rupees and running massive digital media campaign to reach out to the masses, but in vein, because most of these Digital mass emails goes in the Spam folders. And even if it reaches to some, nobody has time to read those long essays written in more typical PR stories rather than informative styles.
There is a strong need to make more collective efforts to popularise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s several important initiatives like ‘Aatma Nirohar Bharat’ and ‘Made in India’ by creating more awareness within the country and globally to ensure fastest possible economic growth rate.
Our earnest endeavor to scale the growth of entrepreneurship across the Indian lands…
Owning the title of being people’s choice magazine, Business Connect, since it started, evolved into a platform that brings together businesspeople, tycoons, C-suite executives, different industrialists, and more to mention. Our vision was simple yet effective to build a world with better chances. Our publication has advanced from the lower classes to the top crust and is now regarded as India’s leading business publication.
We always want to make a positive influence, which motivates us to plan events that might help the economy expand. We made the decision to convene a summit that would bring together major industrialists, think tanks, and, of course, entrepreneurs to discuss topics that are prevalent in the business world.
The goal of the Indo Global Entrepreneurship Forum 2023- is to provide the business community, which is the foundation of the Indian economy, with knowledge and information that will change their lives while also making a small but meaningful contribution to the economic prosperity of our nation.
Being one of the countries with the fastest growth rates in the world, we must concentrate on enhancing the entrepreneurial ecosystem that produces better goods, services, and most crucially, job possibilities. The only endeavor in this direction from which we firmly believe that our community would benefit is this special meeting.
The entrepreneurial ecosystem always facilitates swift flow of talent, information and resources that assist entrepreneurs to quickly get the desirable results at different stages of growth. And concerning this, we are making a stride in the same direction to escalate the growth of our fraternity and the world around us.
So, keep checking back with us to see what this ‘Forum’ has to offer our economy with. Finally, I want to extend my sincere gratitude to all of the jury members, panelists, industrialists, business moguls, entrepreneurs, etc. for extending their invitation to participate in this prestigious summit.
Along with the entire Business Connect family for working effectively with the relevant authorities to make the best-in-class arrangements to make this summit a huge success, | also want to congratulate all the winners on their exceptional achievements and wish them many more to see in the upcoming years! I hope like always we keep in touch and ensure hosting such events for the benefit of the business community and economic growth.
Awardees
