Address of Shri. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP & President- FICCI Interactive Meet with Press 11th March, 2008 – FICCI

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Good afternoon and welcome to this first formal Press Interaction with me after I have assumed the Presidentship of FICCI.

The idea today was to outline what I hope to do this year with FICCI – a kind of an agenda.

I am a strong believer that Indian Industry has reached an inflection point and as a country we have evolved from an economy that was dominated by a few private and some public enterprises to a more vibrant one where todays business leaders may not be tomorrows and there are challenges and opportunities at every turn. The entrepreneurs and companies that recognize the opportunities and meet the challenges are the ones that will remain relevant and successful in the future. So firstly FICCI wants to be seen as and aligned with and encourage the entrepreneurs of the Future and so we are inviting the brightest and youngest from amongst todays entrepreneurs to join FICCI. A number of young Indian businesses and professionals have been invited and are already joing FICCI.

Secondly I believe Business and entrepreneurs should redefine their roles vis a vis government and the country. There is an unfortunate perception that all that business does with Government is mainly work on SOPs for themselves and that Industry organizations spend a lot of time lobbying for them. This perception needs to be addressed. FICCI and I believe strongly that Business and Industry be it large and small must be seen as participants and contributors to our Nation building efforts and not by simply talking about in sophisticated seminars or European destinations but rather by taking on and addressing the real issues of governance today – Issues like strengthening our institutions like Regulators, Competition commission, Pushing for a more plural and inclusive growth model, Ensuring that the government programs deliver better, Push for more competition and efficiency and avoid monopolistic or cartelization temptations.

As a matter of fact during the FMs interactions with us, he made some points. He spoke about price fixing by some sectors, He spoke about the need to look a growth equation that relies on expansion of capacity and therefore volumes with lower prices etc. For the first time, we will take some of his suggestions that are more systemic and fundamental and transmit that in a letter to all our members and urge them to follow these suggestions.

FICCIs main and only objective therefore is to ensure that the country has a sustainable and inclusive growth model for the next decade or two – that will propel us into the league of developed nations. We all realize that whilst we are on a growth path, there are still many political hurdles to ensuring that this growth is sustainable.

One of the key things in this election year is for us to try and establish a minimum economic agenda for Political parties. It is our hope that we can try to ensure that the leading political parties can include in their manifestoes a minimum common agenda around the core issues of Improving efficiencies in the Economy, Improve our institutional framework, Improve Government spending on programs, Therefore FICCI is launching a Politics and Governance Series of seminars and discussions where we hope to bring business, Politics and media together to work out systematically what can be a minimum economic agreement across a majority of our polity.

I look forward to your support as we go down this year.

Thank you.