Manmohan calls for favourable climate to woo investment

September 22, 2012 11:08 pm | Updated June 28, 2016 09:53 pm IST - NEW DELHI:

Prime Minister Manomhan Singh along with Chief Justice of India, Justice S.H.Kapadia and Union Minister of Law and Justice Salman Khurshid, during the International Academic Conference 2012- ''Economic Growth and Changes of Corporate Environment in Asia'' in New Delhi on Saturday. Photo: S. Subramanium

Prime Minister Manomhan Singh along with Chief Justice of India, Justice S.H.Kapadia and Union Minister of Law and Justice Salman Khurshid, during the International Academic Conference 2012- ''Economic Growth and Changes of Corporate Environment in Asia'' in New Delhi on Saturday. Photo: S. Subramanium

A day after the government issued the notification setting guidelines for Foreign Direct Investment, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for building a favourable climate that would attract investment, encourage and reward innovation, and establish fair and effective regulatory institutions and also legal processes.

“Above all, we have the responsibility to ensure probity, transparency and accountability in the processes of governance,” he said, inaugurating a two-day international conference on ‘Economic Growth and Changes in Corporate Environment in Asia’ at Vigyan Bhawan here on Saturday. It has been organised by the Indian Law Institute in collaboration with the Asia Legal Information Network (ALIN) and the Korea Legislation Research Institute (KLRI).

Explaining the steps being taken by the government to attract investment and sustain growth, Dr. Singh said: “In response to transformational changes of this century, we are examining many of our commercial and corporate laws to make them relevant to the challenges that lie ahead, particularly for ensuring distributive equities and empowerment of the marginalised sections… Increasing use of this word, ‘inclusive,’ is indication of this new emphasis on equity in economic and social processes.”

New laws to regulate the securities market, competition and limited liability partnerships had been put in place, he pointed out. “We will soon bring before Parliament the new Companies Bill that has been in the making for quite some time now.”

In an optimistic note, Dr. Singh said: “The 21st century is rightly spoken of as the Asian century. Economic growth in Asia in the last decade has positioned the region as the growth engine of the world. At a time when industrialised countries’ growth has greatly slowed down, the GDP of Asian countries is estimated to grow by 6.9 per cent in 2012 and 7.3 per cent in 2013. The Asian region is thus expected to play a very crucial role in driving and stabilising the global recovery process. If everything goes right, Asia’s share in the world economy could be greater than half by 2050, as against the present level of about 27 per cent...”

The Prime Minister said: “As Asian governments, we in the government have the responsibility to ensure that corporate laws match up to international standards, that the regulation of our stock exchanges comes up to the expectations of global investors and that our banking and financial sectors are exemplars of both efficiency and stability.”

Dr. Singh said: “The evolving economic space has to be addressed by all organs of the government: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Separation of powers has been the classical guarantee of constitutional government and the rule of law. The balance among the three organs may appear to get unsettled at times, but ultimately it has stood the test of time. While Parliament has endeavoured to give expression to the aspirations of the people, the higher judiciary in India has made the most remarkable innovations in the field of public law using instruments like judicial review of administrative action and the public interest or social action litigation to enforce constitutional mandates and to amplify the Constitution’s philosophy in a meaningful manner.”

The Prime Minister said: “As recent judgments have shown, the adjudication of rights and claims between parties, including between state actors and non-state parties, has wide implications for the economy and can no longer be viewed in isolation. Judicial decisions may at times have transnational impact since the global financial and trade systems are also becoming closely integrated. Therefore, judges of the 21st century have to be social scientists, economists, political thinkers and philosophers.”

Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia presided. CJI-designate Justice Altamas Kabir, Supreme Court judge Swatanter Kumar, Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati, KLRI president Yoohwam Kim and Indian Law Institute Director in-charge S. Sivakumar attended the conference.

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