Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday told the global business community that his government aims to transform the country through access, inclusion and empowerment while also ensuring complete data security.
Modi was addressing the World Economic Forum’s online Davos Agenda Summit, where he also interacted with global business leaders. He said India offers a predictable and friendly environment from tax regime to FDI norms.
He said Aatmanirbhar Bharat movement is committed to global good and global supply chain while the country’s digital profile has been completely transformed.
India is focussing on sustainable urbanisation with focus on ease of living, ease of doing business and climate sensitive development, said Modi.
He also talked about evacuation of citizens when air space was closed and supply of medicines to more than 150 countries.
“Today, India is helping countries with online training, knowledge of traditional knowledge, vaccines and vaccine infrastructure,” he said.
He said that India has maintained economic activity by starting infrastructure projects worth billions of rupees and initiating special schemes for employment.
We are focused on saving lives and we are also focussing on boosting the economy. India’s ambition of self-reliance will strengthen globalism anew and will help in Industry 4.0, Modi said.
The Prime Minister asserted that India is working on all the four factors of Industry 4.0 — connectivity, automation, artificial intelligence or machine learning and real-time data.
India is among the countries where data charges are the cheapest and mobile connectivity and smart phones have reached far and wide while India’s automation design expert pool is vast and the country has made a mark in the field of AI and machine learning, the prime minister said.
“Growing digital infrastructure has made digital solutions everyday part of life in India. Today 1.3 billion Indians have universal ID – Aadhaar which is connected to their account and phone. In December itself, there has been 4 trillion rupees worth of transactions through UPI,” he said.
During the question-answer session, the prime minister told Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser that making India a manufacturing and export hub is a big part of the government’s vision.
He also invited the global players to take advantage of the USD 26 billion-Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.
In a reply to ABB CEO Bjorn Rosengren, Modi listed out the ongoing infrastructure projects in the country and informed that under National Infrastructure pipeline, projects worth USD 1.5 trillion will be implemented in the country in the next five years.
To Nobuhiro Endo, Chairman of the Board, NEC Corporation, Modi explained India’s approach towards the opportunities created by urbanisation.
“India is focussing on sustainable urbanisation with focus on ease of living, ease of doing business and climate sensitive development. This commitment has led to investment of USD 150 billion… in urban India during 2014 to 2020,” Modi said.
