Modi Assured Korean Investors that India Offers Lot of Potential

Second India-Korea Business Summit was held on February 27, 2018 in New Delhi with the aim to strengthen the economic relationship, boost trade relations and increase investments between India and Republic of Korea. Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi chaired a roundtable of delegates from both Governments and 25 CEOs from leading Korean companies with estimated revenue of USD 575 billion. Modi in the inaugural address outlined his vision for greater economic engagement with the East and outlined the need to further boost partnership between two countries through investment and collaboration and said, “We have worked towards creating a stable business environment, removing arbitrariness in decision making. We seek positivity in day to day transactions. We are widening areas of trust. This represents a complete change of the Government’s mind-set”. He invited Korean investments in India in railways, water, transport, energy, electronics, IT and infrastructure, assuring that India offers a lot of potential for the Korean Investors with its huge market and enabling policy environment.

• The roundtable highlighted strategic partnership between India and Republic of Korea and the potential of increasing trade and investment between the two countries.
• It gave the Korean companies an opportunity to discuss their investment plans and resolve any pending issues being faced by the Korean companies in their India operations.
• Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu highlighted the recent reforms undertaken by the Government of India, the Make in India initiative and India’s achievement in global ranking.

Modi said that India is a combination of all three important factors for any thriving economy:  democracy, demography and demand and added that India is on a de-regulation and de-licensing drive. He added that the validity period of industrial licenses has been increased from 3 years to 15 years; Industrial licensing regime for defence production has been liberalized greatly; Nearly 65% to 70% of the items previously under licensing can now be produced without a license; and stated, “Our vision is to create a globally competitive industry and services base equipped with skill, speed and scale. New India is emerging which will be modern and competitive and yet caring and compassionate”:

• India has: Globally cost competitive manufacturing eco-system;
• Vast pool of skilled professionals with knowledge and energy;
• World class engineering education base and strong R&D facilities;
• Carried out thousands of reforms on the business, investment, governance and cross border trading front. Some of them like GST are historic.
• India is the fastest growing major economy of the world today
• It is a country with the one of the largest Start up eco-systems.
• Is already the third-largest economy by purchasing power.
• Very soon, India will become the world’s fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP.
• India has climbed 42 places in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index in the last three years; and now working towards ‘Ease of Living”.
• Moved up 19 places on the Logistics Performance Index of 2016 of World Bank;
• Improved 31 places in last two years in the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum;
• Moved up twenty one places on the Global Innovation Index of WIPO in two years;
• In FDI, India is one of the most open countries now.
• India is among the top 10 FDI destinations listed by UNCTAD.
• Korea’s open market policies have found resonance with India’s economic liberalization and ‘Look East Policy’.
• Bilateral trade between India and Korea has crossed 20 billion dollars last year, for the first time in six years.
• Over 500 Korean companies are operating in India and their products are house-hold names.
• South Korea ranks 16^th in FDI Equity inflows to India with investments of $2.26 billion between March 2000 and April 2017.

Modi appreciated the strides taken by Korea in transforming into a global brand and admired the spirit of enterprise of the Korean people and the way Korea has created and sustained the global brand.  From IT and Electronics to Automobile and Steel, Korea has given exemplary products to the world. Korean companies are appreciated for their innovation, and strong manufacturing capability

He said that a need for a hand-holding agency was felt during his visit to Korea. Thus, ’Korea Plus’ was formed in June 2016, which has facilitated more than 100 Korean Investors in just 2 years. This shows India’s commitment towards welcoming Korean people, companies, ideas and investments.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley speaking at the same summit later in the day, said that Indian economy had the potential to achieve a growth rate of more than 7-8%.

This Summit organized by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, in partnership with ChosunILbo, KOTRA, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Invest India, addressed various issues across industries and was attended by over a thousand delegates, including 425 South Korean delegates from 90 Korean companies, senior government officials and political leaders. Several B2B meetings were arranged on the side-lines of the summit.