Corporate Governance Key to Economic Efficiency & Growth

Mint Corporate Strategy Awards 2018 were given away by the Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu on March 23, 2018 in Mumbai with “Corporate Governance” as the theme of the awards. Addressing the gathering Naidu said that Indian corporates need to Reform, Perform and Transform so that they can open up new vistas of global opportunities which would in turn benefit our country and its people, and added that the corporate governance is a key element in improving economic efficiency and growth as well as enhancing investors’ confidence. Awards have considered an elaborate methodology for identifying the most qualified companies in four categories and winners were as under:

Categories     Winners              Runners up

Classical        Eicher Motors     Castrol India & Pernod Ricard

Adaptive       Tata Sky         Sony Pictures Network India & Edelweiss Financial Services

Shaping       Bajaj Finance      Torrent Pharmaceuticals

Renewal         Tata Steel             InterGlobe Aviation & Adani Power

Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu further said:

• India is on the rise. For the new India to become a reality at the earliest, the corporate sector has an important role to play as a catalyst. This requires dynamic, innovative,credible, transparent, accountable, value based and enlightened corporate governance practices.
• Higher corporate governance standards need to be propelled by the larger ethical and environmental concerns.
• Three major aspects of corporate governance are accountability, transparency and equal treatment of all shareholders.
• Corporate governance, in a sense, as an ecosystem, is a subset of the larger economic, legal and regulatory ecosystem. These two ecosystems feed on each other which in turn impact the efficiency of resources utilisation and the outcomes.
• Corporate Governance is one key element in improving economic efficiency and growth as well as enhancing investor’s confidence.
• It is good to know that corporate and media are converging with the larger aim of furthering the cause of the drivers of the economy.

With India turning into an attractive destination for foreign investments and the government’s push to the manufacturing sector through ‘Make in India’ programme, it is believed that this sector has the potential to reach US$ one trillion by 2025.  As the global economy is looking up, India should take advantage of the global conditions to further spur the growth.

Summing up the way forward for higher corporate governance, he suggested a Sweet Philosophy, which means:

• Segregation of ownership and control
• Wealth creation of which profits will be a by product
• Efficiency of decision-making and resource use
• Ethical and environmental commitments
• Transparency through accountability