The Hindu : Front Page : Manmohan to meet top corporate leaders today

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Monday, Nov 03, 2008
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Manmohan to meet top corporate leaders today

Special Correspondent

Manmohan Singh

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened a meeting of top corporate leaders and leading industry associations here on Monday to discuss the impact of the financial crises and measures to help India make a soft landing.

The meeting comes in the wake of several measures by the government to ease the liquidity crunch and a fortnight before global leaders are scheduled to discuss regulations to avert speculative build ups in financial systems. Before the Washington meeting to be attended by Dr. Singh, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram will meet his G-20 counterparts at Sao Paulo on November 8.

Monday’s interaction will be attended by industrialists Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Sunil Mittal and Deepak Parikh among others. The interaction has been preceded by meetings within industry associations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) to collate their wish lists. The Presidents of CII, FICCI and Assocham, K.V. Kamath, Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Sajjan Jindal, will also participate in the meeting.

The industry has been urging relief from high interest rates and a squeeze on liquidity but with the Reserve Bank of India announcing measures on both measures, India Inc would now be pressing for an all-round easing of the credit crunch and high interest rates including overnight bank lending rates. Industry, however, expects Mr. Chidambaram to put across some of their demands to heads of public sector banks when he meets them this week.

CII holds meeting

The CII held a meeting of 16 past presidents on Friday to discuss the global slowdown and FICCI had also prepared an agenda that sought a further one percent cut in the cash reserve ratio to release more liquidity in the system. In a statement the FICCI said it would like to get the focus back on “growth and growth alone.”

Due to global contractions, “inflation will moderate by next year and so this continuing focus on inflation at the expense of growth is not necessary,” noted the Chamber while pressing for a half per cent cut in the repo rate with the aim to pare it to five per cent in future.

The CII will be highlighting the low industrial growth of 1.3 per cent in August from a high of 10.9 per cent a year ago and seeking a review of limits on foreign direct investment in sectors such as telecom, retail and aviation.

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