Hailing the landslide victory of the BJP-led NDA, industry has expressed optimism that the Narendra Modi-led new government would put the economy on a stronger growth path. Corporate India hopes that the new government would immediately undertake bold reforms and instil confidence in the economy.
Stating that the decisive mandate would improve overall sentiments, India Inc wants the new government to immediately focus on restoring the country's reputation as a manufacturing hub, besides speeding up infrastructure projects.
“The economic reforms agenda can be taken forward with a stable political dispensation and a multi-dimensional tool-box of policy instruments is required to kick-start growth,” said Ajay Shriram, President, Confederation of Indian Indsutry (CII). “With prudent macroeconomic management, CII expects that the economy could recover to 6.5 per cent GDP growth rate in 2014-15 as against an estimated 4.9 per cent in 2013-14. Continued reforms could take GDP growth rate to 8 per cent level in three years.” he added.
FICCI President Sidharth Birla said that the clear mandate would help the leadership restore the much-needed investor confidence, and attract higher investments and generate jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector.
Nasscom President R. Chandrasekhar said the industry would be keen on working with the new government to build policies that aided the sector to play its destined role globally as well as in the development of the country.
“I feel positive that the next 10 years will probably be a golden period for India: development-oriented and well-governed,” said A Vellayan, Executive Chairman, Murugappa Group. “Once manufacturing starts growing, that will kick off the country’s GDP growth and generate employment,’’ he added. He said the new government should devise strong strategies in areas such as foodgrains, IT, leather, engineering and automobile, with a goal to be world-class.
“The prime task before the new government will be to put the economy back on track and regain the business confidence. It should give top priority to infrastructure development and ensure completion of pending projects. This will go a long way in reviving the investment climate, economic activity and start generating jobs,” N Srinivasan, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, India Cements, said.
B Santhanam, Managing Director of Saint-Gobain Glass India, wanted the new government to put the country on a sound economic and social footing. Loyal Textiles Chairman and Managing Director M. Manikam Ramaswami hoped that absolute majority would translate into tremendous amount of freedom. Early implementation of GST through consensus should be one of the top priorities of the new government, said Hemant Kanoria, CMD, Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services felt that the new government's reform initiatives in economic and fiscal policies in the next two-to- three months could have significant implications on the sovereign credit rating on India. “In our view, NDA's strong showing indicates that it will have a reasonably good political platform to tackle structural issues. However, the government will face hurdles in sustaining growth in the medium-to-long term. The hurdles include reviving investor confidence, managing fiscal consolidation, regaining fiscal prudence, improving the current account balance, and boosting the banking sector's financial strength, it added.
But ratings agency Moody’s warned that the economic trends would take longer to improve than sentiments did, and expected the GDP growth to remain at 5 per cent. “Nonetheless, industrial momentum could pick up in the second-half of the year, as stalled investment resumes and consumer confidence increases,” it added.
