Indian economy today is transparent, open and watchable, says Sitharaman to US biz community

The Indian economy today is transparent, open and watchable, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the American business community on Tuesday making a strong pitch before them to come and invest in India and be part of the country’s amazing growth story.

Addressing a luncheon meeting of the US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum, Sitharaman told representatives of the top US companies that these are results of the pathbreaking and futuristic reforms, including digitisation being undertaken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last nine years.

“Digitisation has had an immense impact on the Indian economy, bringing transparency,” Sitharaman said.

Read | India's focus going to be on skilling, digitisation: FM Sitharaman

Earlier, nearly 40 per cent of the Indian economy was grey, she said.

Today, the government has incentivised many of these transactions, if it is digital, you get concessions and then onboarded people onto the digital system, she said.

“Now, the Indian economy is not small, (it is) transparent, open, watchable if you want to use that word. With all these developments. Therefore, for the next 25 years in the budget, we proposed that India should become an artificial intelligence hub,” she said.

“We've proposed three centres of excellence in the premier institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, who would research into artificial intelligence and find out tools using artificial intelligence, which can make the life of businesses or householders easy,” the minister said.

“So, India wants to lead in the artificial intelligence area. Other than that, of course, hydrogen emission was announced in the last budget and in this budget, we have made sure that green hydrogen gets all the importance,” she told the US business community.

Referring to the vision of the prime minister to transform India into a developed economy in the next 25 years, Sitharaman said, the government has specifically identified the next 25 years leading towards India's hundred years of being free from Imperial rule.

“So, by 2047, we expect India...meeting the aspirations of our youth...You're looking at a very high potentially youthful, very skilled population which is going to contribute to India's growth,” Sitharaman said.

“We are looking at a lot of measures and steps which will bring in life and rejuvenate the economy, which globally in every country you see that there is a reset happening... One, because of the ways in which supply chains got disrupted, you had several reasons which led to a sort of dissolution that came about in some minds, not every mind about the way in which globalisation has benefited itself but didn't benefit, benefit a majority," she said.

"Whether that's a perception, that's real, it's a different story, but you've had to re-globalize with a far more flexible working style and also bringing that belief that capitalism and the democracy working together has actually eliminated more poverty, brought many people out of poverty and enhanced livelihood of all,” Sitharaman said.

Sitharaman is leading a high-powered delegation to Washington to attend IMF, and World Bank meetings.