 Coming up in the CNBC debate, Investing in India with your host, Martin Sohn. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and honor and a pleasure for me to be here with you on behalf of the World Economic Forum and also CNBC, thank you for joining us. We've got about 60 minutes to spend with you here in this room, so let's get right to it and introduce our panel in no particular order. To my right we've got Ramesh Abhishek from the government, Secretary of Industrial Policy and Promotion of India. Next to him we have Yusuf Ali, Chairman and Managing Director, the Lulu Group International based in the UAE, United Arab Emirates and I understand very heavily invested in India with even more aggressive plans in consumer-related hypermarts and malls and hotels as well. For the private sector or management consultant perspective, Sree Rajan, who's the Chairman of Bain and Company India and last but not least the Rose among four thorns here, Rachel Whitestone, Senior Vice President of Policy and Communications, Uber Technologies out of, of course, the United States and she would be not just a foreign investor but also I guess the tech disruptor perspective for this panel of ours. So as you can see a very, I think, perfectly pitched panel to talk about this issue of investing in India, which is very broad. We could go many different ways. We could talk about the impending GST. We could talk about Prime Minister Modi's make in India policy or campaign and we probably will do all of that. But what I'd like to do is to simplify it because I'm not a very smart guy. I'm not very complicated. So let's look at this in a linear fashion and talk about investing in India over a timeline of three very simple points. Getting in while you're in doing business and also getting out. And Raman Shivai could call on you first to talk us through this first point, getting in the entry or entrance for any foreign investor wanting to do business in India. Obviously the Modi government has made significant changes to make things much easier, faster, more efficient, more pleasant maybe to do business in India. Help us to recap the major changes in your mind. Give us an update, the status or the state of play where we are today and also talk about impending or upcoming changes that we can all look forward to. India always had, as someone has said, largest unfulfilled potential. But somehow we needed to have a set of policies that were required to fulfill that potential. Young population and large middle class. So all that this government is trying now to implement a series of transformative actions and policies which are required to realize this potential. So for example, our FDI policies, they were very restrictive. Now we have made India one of the most open economies. Even in very sensitive sectors, we have allowed 100% FDI under automatic route in most cases. 92% of FDI comes under automatic route now and we are further relaxing the FDI regime. Similarly, it came to different tax policies. Now GST is going to provide finally an union within India where doing business will be so much easier. Cascading effect of taxes will go away, the high transaction costs, movement across borders of states. So all this is going to really help. So apart from providing this infrastructure, another big bottleneck in our manufacturing and our doing business. So now we have very ambitious plans in highways, railways, ports, inland waterways. So all these are being done now. And another big area of course has been ease of doing business. With doing business in India has never been easy. For decades we have made our processes, procedures extremely complicated for no particular reason because now the government is fully focused on making things simpler. If you just think about starting a company, it used to take many, many days. Now with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs bringing out a lot of reforms, it takes only one plus working day. As a matter of fact, this is being further simplified now. Let me quickly jump in. The IMF as well, the World Bank, think that India's economy is going to grow at about seven and a half percent this year. That would still be the fastest growing big economy, major economy in the world. So you've made all these changes at seven and a half percent. Why do you need more? As a matter of fact, I think we need to grow at least double digit for at least two decades with a per capita income of about $1,500. I don't think the seven and a half percent is good enough. And we can do far better. Remember, double digits low, mid, high? We will definitely aim for the highest. But let's see. We need to do all the things that are needed to be done. We need to improve our business climate, infrastructure, tax environment. All these things are done. There is a huge potential. Okay. I have to ask you. The final numbers for the impending GST are not out yet. I think a lot of people are waiting for them still. But your economic modeling, and I'm sure you've done a lot of that. If you're at seven and a half percent now, based on the final numbers of the GST, it would bump up growth in India by roughly how much? Give me a range. See. One percentage point. Two. Well, I know I will not be able to give a specific number, but you see that a lot of transactions which are not taking in the formal sector now will actually come in the formal sector. So it's part of the economy, but it's not recorded. So those will also come into this. Okay. So this is fascinating. What you're talking about is the black-ray informal economy at this juncture right now today. That is how much of the official economy do you think? I don't think there are very accurate estimates, but this GST itself is a game changer for making India and manufacturing because the cascading effect of taxes is gone. And actually for makers here, they get much better refund on inputs, and they get a much better level playing field against imports. So and of course not to speak of the easy compliance that will going to come in. So this Make in India program is going to get a big boost with GST. So I think growth rates is definitely going to go up. I think exactly how it pans out. Then maybe some pain in the first initial year or so, but ultimately is going to be extremely helpful. Okay. I have to ask you a blunt question. You know, several people I've talked to say that whether it is the impending GST, whether it's April of next year or more likely than not a little bit later, the ensuing months, the first several months, there is going to be chaos. Are you anticipating this? I will not say there is going to be chaos, but you see the initial, there are a lot of processes and procedures that need to be in place. The corporates, the business, they also need to get adjusted to this. So those initial months could be, you know, there will be adjustment month or transition period, but it's not, there's not going to be chaos. See, the country has been preparing for this for quite some time. The technological framework is in place. So I think all that is going to work out quite well. So here's maybe a silly question. At first I was going to ask you whether you think the private sector is ready, you know, whether it's what we know or the black-ray and formal sector, which is going to be co-opted into this whole new tax structure. But rather, I'd be more interested to know, bluntly, is the government ready? I think government has made a plan and schedule for implementing GST. And so far, they are only ahead of the time. You know, all the, this bill was passed by majority of the assemblies. It got the approval of the president. So it has constitutional amendment bill has become a law now. And GST council has been formed. They have met a number of times. And a number of very important decisions have been taken by them. So it's all going according to the schedule of first April, 2017. Okay, but you have many states which are still not happy. See, there's a consensus that this has to be done. And I think this is the broadest possible political consensus that we have received in support of GST. So I think this is going to roll out as planned. Okay, all right. Rachel, for Uber, you guys have been in the country for, and you did for what about three years, right? Just recap for us, what's your experience been? How daunting or how surprisingly smooth has it been for you? I think that we've just been incredibly grateful for a lot of the support that we've had. Obviously, when you're going into cities, you're bringing a new way of getting around the city. People have questions about that. You're both trying to get riders to join the platform. You're also trying to get drivers on boards. You're trying to create a two-sided market in a new area. And in India, we have seen very supportive governments. You also see different flavors of what different governments want to achieve for their cities. But generally, we're now in 20-plus cities. We're going to be in another four by the end of the year. We have over 200,000 drivers who use the app every month. And so it's been a great place for us to be. And we've found that it's been very successful. You've got Ramesh right here, just feet away from you. What more would you like to see the Indian government do to make it easier or better for Uber to do business? I think that there are ways that you can simplify the permit process for drivers, which is not necessarily so much a central government thing. It's a state level thing and city level thing. The reality is that the more barriers that you have that a driver has to get through to get onto the platform, the less flexibility they have. So it's interesting in countries where you have more permits and rules and regulations, the drivers tend to look more full-time. So they'll drive 20, 25 hours plus a week. And in cities where you maybe have a single licensing regime, where the license is held by the operator and the operator is responsible for the consumer protection, safety and competition, you'll see a lot of drivers who drive for less than 10 hours a week. So if it's a city, you want to use it as a flexible earning opportunity, then you need to think about how many barriers you're putting in. The barriers also have an effect which we don't see in India, but we see in other countries where you put a lot of barriers in the way, then you don't have as many riders and drivers on the system. You don't have as many identical trips, i.e. people going from point A to point B at exactly the same time. And it's by those identical trips that you can introduce uber pool and car pooling. And then you can get more people into fewer cars which has obvious benefits for the city. But we have found in Delhi and other places, the government has been very receptive to uber pool because they understand that there are ways that you can use smartphones plus the existing infrastructure to get more people into fewer cars and to extend the public transit networks at no cost to the taxpayer. I know that uber has a program, I guess a town of a fleet program which involves right now a few government offices or departments. Does that include yours? Not really, but if I may just add. Please. See, all these technological innovations that are coming in which are very disruptive in nature, they are creating huge amount of jobs in our country. They are also providing the most needed services to consumers, so we are all for it. As a matter of fact, government has set up a committee on how we can promote e-commerce in the country and we have had presentations from a number of companies like uber and we are trying to see where the bottlenecks are in all these areas of e-commerce and we want to fix those problems. Though I must say, Rachel, that getting a driving license in India when thought was a bit too easy it should be made a little more rigorous, you know. It wasn't the associated bits that sometimes... No, I get your part, yeah. Yes, I think we all want drivers to have driving licenses and to be good drivers. Okay, for the record, Ramesh, I have to ask you, right? You've got uber in three years ago, okay? You have the dominant player in the industry, happens to be an Indian company, Ola. Can you give Rachel a reassurance that there is no even unintentional preference towards a local player? See, I think it's the job of the government and the regulators to promote competition, which actually protects and benefits the consumers. So we are here to make sure that we have an environment which is not anti-competitive and where there is maximum competition. So that is the policy of the government and that is why the government should be doing it. And from our perspective, we believe that we are operating in a very competitive place where the best product will win. And we believe that the government is entirely even-handed in the way it thinks about those things and very pro-competition. So from our perspective, we have absolute confidence that that's how things are working. Okay, I may be stirring up a horn's nest, but we are all professionals and we are all adults here. The legacy, reputational legacy and damage from that very unfortunate and tragic incident where an uber driver carry a passenger, a woman who allegedly was raped. Obviously the government is aware of this. Obviously the public is very much aware of this. Does this at all play into government thinking when you look at foreign entrants like uber? I think this incident, I don't know if it has anything to do with the ownership pattern of the company. I think it's more important. That's how they do things. I think it's more important that we have safety checks in place. You know, the background check on drivers whether they're employed by a foreign company or Indian company, I think those kind of precautions are very important. Okay, now are you satisfied they are doing all those now? I'm sorry? Are you satisfied that they are doing what they need to do? I haven't really gone into what they have done, but there has not been many incidents after that, so yeah. Thankfully, yes, Angie Shreve, I can come to you and talk us through a bit more about this entry part of the equation along this timeline, three points. How would you assess how the Modi government has done, happily through its term now? So I must say that actually they've done a pretty good job. You know, if you look back over the course of the last couple of years, they've improved the entry of companies into the sector. It doesn't have to do with foreign investment, but even Indian companies as an example. And one of the things that Mr. Abhishek talked about was reducing the amount of time it takes to register a company that's come down very significantly. I do want to make a couple of points, which is that while the entry part of it has eased up, and I can say this on behalf of many of my clients who are looking to invest in India, I do want to, you didn't ask this question, but I do want to touch upon it, which is the difficulty of doing business in India is still very significant, and we shouldn't shy away from that. And part of the reason is that it doesn't just have to do with the central government, and the central government has done a lot of good work in terms of making it easy to come into the country if you're a foreign investor, and to also do business in India in terms of approvals. What I was mentioning actually to Mr. Abhishek right before this conversation, that there is still a significant set of challenges that companies face when they set up operations in India, especially so in the manufacturing sector. And I think the reason why there's been such a significant growth in the services sector over the course of the last 25 years is that the truth is that it takes much less to set up and run a services company in India than it does to operate a manufacturing plant. Lower barriers to entry is what you're saying. Lower barriers to entry, and the problem is that, and I say this again on behalf probably of many people in this room, which is that when you actually set up a plant in India, you are stuck, and you therefore are subject to all the vagaries of the local governments, whether it's the state government or the local governments. There is a lot of work that still remains to be done to improve the ease of doing business once you actually set up operations. And the final point around the exit, I think you know the bankruptcy of the insolvency code that's come into place, we have to see the fine print, the detail, the implementation of how it's going to be done, but I think it's a great step in the right direction. But this middle part, that's the part that still needs a lot of attention in my mind. Once you're in and you are our doing business is where the attention needs to be. So okay, pick three things. In that middle part, what needs to change? What needs to get better? What does the government need to do better? So I would say that the first part is really around what GST will solve. So the whole set of transit taxes and hopefully the implementation will happen in a way that it doesn't complicate matters even further. I don't think it will. But the best outcome would be to actually remove all the barriers in terms of transport of goods and services as well. We haven't talked about services, but transport of goods and services across the country. That's number one. Number two is that there are a lot of regulations still at the local level and there is no consistency. We're not expecting, I don't think any of my clients are expecting that the same regulation has to happen at one state versus another. But some level of consistency, both in terms of what the intent of the regulation is, as well as actually the enforcement of the regulation. I think there's still a lot of discretionary power still at the local level and it's very difficult to figure out how to navigate that. Okay, but you'd have to agree that harmonization of the tax code, at least at a federal level, is a pretty good start. Completely agree. Yes. I completely agree with that. So number two would be to just pay a little more attention to really what's happening at the local level. And then number three would be really, this is something that we've talked about in the past over the last year and a half or so, which is standards bodies. The role that they play in different industries and making sure that again there is consistency and transparency in which they operate and making sure that people understand the regulatory environment in which an industry is expected to operate. I would say those are three things that the government should think about. And is the government addressing these? As a matter of fact, that gives me an opportunity to share with all of you what we are doing on ease of doing business with states. Now, as a matter of fact, perhaps the first experiment of its kind anywhere, we are ranking states in ease of doing business. They started last year on a 98 point action plan, states were ranked. And after that we find a huge amount of competition among states to actually improve the business climate. Now there are 340 points of starting from, if you want to start a business, what is the kind of information that is required, is it there in one place? And when you start a business, what are the clearances and how much time it takes? And when you are doing a business, compliance has inspections and all that, and exit and enforcement of contracts. So there are 340 points. If you see the website that we have on ease of doing business or DIPP website, this evaluation is being done by the World Bank team, which is working with us. So in a federal country, that is basically not the central government that is doing the evaluation is the World Bank team, but they work with us. And 12 states have got more than 75% score this year, and 11 states have got more than 83% score. And in that website, you can see what reforms they have done. The laws, the circulars, the guidelines that have been made are all on that website. But I completely agree with Sri. All this must be reflected on the ground. And since these reforms have been done, laws have been made, things have been changed, because the states are realizing that unless they do this, the investors are not going to come. And as a matter of fact, you have to also keep the existing investors there. So there is a big realization now that they have to improve their business climate. They have to improve this ground level problem, which are very much there, which have been there, which are improving, but we need to do much more. Okay, Yusuf Ali and the Lulu group, obviously you have come or your investments have come into India and you have very aggressive and ambitious plans for further investments. I know despite all these issues and problems that we've been talking about, why and how have you navigated all this? See, first of all, we should congratulate Honorable Prime Minister and Prime Minister's team. We NRA is about 25 million NRAs. They are staying outside India. Before, we had a lot of restrictions to invest in our own country, in our motherland. First of all, we should congratulate the NRA investment to be treated as domestic investment. That is a big achievement. And there's a big change that the new government made. So it became easy for us to invest in India and NRAs. Not only me, but from different parts of the world. They are very easy to invest in our country. Number two in the investor, what an investor need is infrastructure, human resources, strong economy and ease the laws, the regulations, rightly our Honorable Secretary told. So now things are moving at least, changing. First of all, NRAs are happy that they can bring their money and invest in all sectors because it's treated as domestic investment. That's a great achievement because we 40, since 45 years, a lot of restrictions for NRAs to invest in India, agriculture sector, retail sector, or shopping mall sector, real estate sector, a lot of restrictions were there. So when this new regulation, new rule they implemented that NRA investment should be treated as domestic investment, we can do the business like an Indian company is doing. Number one, we constructed one of India's biggest shopping mall in Cochin. And we also, we are hyper market people mainly. We started our first hyper market in Kerala. Kerala people were talking that Kerala is not investor friendly. But I showed to the world and the people and the NRAs that Kerala, the state of Kerala is investor friendly. I constructed and I started my first hyper market in Cochin, Kerala, since two years. Now I am constructing another shopping mall in hyper market in Trivandrum. And one more in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. So these new regulations plus our strong economy. India is a developing country. That means a developed country. What is the definition of developing country? Means developed country. We can say, not 100% developed, but just developing. So in the development, we should also part of that development. Then we can also develop. I strongly believe that. So, yes, please. I find it maybe ironic, maybe amusing too. And Shree helped me out here. I'm not mistaken. Is the state government in Kerala still communist? Yes. It is. I find it hugely ironic and amusing that you've set up hyper markets in Kerala. Now, when the new regulation and the new ease of doing business, like you said earlier, now the states are competing themselves. They are looking what the other states are doing, what the new laws the other states are implementing. And they're also strong thinking that why the other states are getting more investment and not to us. So even the Kerala government is open for business. They are open for investment. Not only the previous government, it's a communist government. But they are liberalized policies. They are following liberalized policies. And they are passing the GST and supported government for the GST. And the government, see, now our human resource is very strong. I will tell you. If you go to any other countries, we have to bring the human resource from outside, suppose. In India, we have educated boys, intellectual boys and girls who are ready to work. That's a big achievement for our country. So a lot of chief ministers are traveling all over the world to bring investment to their own state. Because otherwise, they will be in problem. Because their unemployment level increase. So even the Kerala government, I can tell, now we are constructing India's biggest, I told, explained largest convention center with a tile. So this is a part of tourism, part of, you know, we can invite so many people and conferences. This in the Kerala is a beautiful country, God's own country. So they have to go through the central government's new rules and regulations. Otherwise, there will be a problem for them to give employment to their new generation. So Ali, let me ask you, with the Modi government's focus on manufacturing, this will make in India policy, your group has, obviously, the means. And you personally, obviously, have the means as well. If you wanted to diversify into manufacturing in India, is that part of your plan? See, now all states are inviting the investors to come to their own state and their single-window policies. Now a single-window policy started in so many governments, so many states. Any problem for the investors or the business people should go through single-window. Within 45 days, they should give. Within 60 days, they should give permission for all. And single-window, that means the same office will coordinate with the main problem. But rightly, Mr. Ajahn mentioned, is a lack of coordination because we cannot go to those 10 departments to get this environment. We have to protect our environment. We have to protect our nature. This is all there. So one agency will go and take all the permissions as per the government guidelines. This is a very positive policy of the different states governments. OK, but it could be improved, I think, with Shri's point, at this more local level. And I want to bring Rachel Lennon on this as well. As Uber, you're in what is, 20, 28 cities in India right now and with plans to expand more. As you push forward to expand more into more cities in India, your distribution, this complex web, this sort of the sclerotic nature of local regulations, is that a problem for you? Is that a problem for Uber? Our perspective on this is somewhat different. We have observed in countries where you have more devolved power at city and state level, often you can get the kind of innovation that we're bringing in more quickly. And we see that in places like India, we see it in places like America, we see it in places like Brazil and in Australia. The thing about, there's a sort of tendency, I think, to think that if central government would just pass the perfect regulation, then everything would be perfect. And sometimes it doesn't turn out like that. And in places like Germany and other places, we've seen that the exact opposite happens. And so I think in the way that the government talks about having some good competitive tension between the states and the cities is actually a really valuable thing for businesses. And certainly for businesses that are trying to do new things, that has been really important to us and really important to our success. Now, of course, there are things that you can do at a central government level to simplify and make simple. But I think as a company, we are very much in favor of cities and individual states trying different approaches, because otherwise you're just simply not going to get the innovation. So if you look in some parts of the world, some cities are very open to doing public transit partnerships with us. So we can effectively extend the metro or the bus network using UberPool and our services, push a button, get a ride, take you to the metro stop, take you to the bus stop. And some cities are not interested in doing that. And so we are always a bit anxious around homogeneity. We think as a hyper-local company that the differences in government can be incredibly powerful for innovation and entrepreneurship. And you want to be very careful about throwing those out. Fair enough. I need to ask you, though, your closest competitor, of course, Ola, in terms of cities they're in and operating and distribution, I think out of numbers, you're five to one. I mean, that's a fact right now, right? How important is it for a company like Uber to gain more distribution, to get into more cities, or is it more where your business model operates better, which tends to be urban centers, doesn't it? I think that the most important thing for us is to have the best customer experience, whether you're on the driver's side or whether you're on the rider's side. What matters to riders is reliability. They want waiting times, what we call ETAs, estimated time of arrival, under 10 minutes, preferably under five minutes. That is super important. They want to know that you have safety protections built in using the technology. They want to know that it's convenient. And so that actually really matters. And on the driver's side, they want rewarding earning opportunities. And so you have to, there's a lot of technology that goes into making the car and the rider get to the same point at the same time. And so for us, a lot of where we see the competitive advantage is in having better technology, better product, better customer experience. And that's what we're focused on. And we only want to go into cities when we know that we can do a really, really great job there and that we can continually improve the service. So yes, of course, over a period of time, you'd like to be in more cities, but what actually matters is, are you doing a really great job as far as we're concerned from our customer's perspective in the cities that we're in before going to more? And they're just different strategies that you pursue, but that's how we approach it. Okay, just curious, show of hands. How many people in the audience use Uber? Wow, nice. And regularly, I think that says a fair bit. Okay, that's good to know, note that down. Shree, we talked about this earlier on. What Uber's doing, the disruption in transportation. Where else do you see this ripe? What other sectors or industries are ripe for this kind of disruption in India? We talked a little bit about financial services and I apologize to bankers in the audience. Yeah. So financial services is the next obvious one. And I think the climate or the environment is ripe for that. We have 900 million people plus who are connected to the network, to the telecom network. We have 200 million plus smartphone users. We also have a problem of financial inclusion, which means that we don't have enough people who are part of the banking network. And who are dependent on, let's say, local money lenders or dependent on other means to actually get access whether it's to credit or other types of banking mechanisms. And I think over the course of the last few years, we've seen the RBI in particular do many things. For example, come up with the payment banks, the small banks, banking licenses on tap and so on. And also allowing telecom operators to also be a part of the banking system whether it's in terms of payments or anything else. There's a lot to be done. And I feel that, and this is something that's not specific to India, but with the advent of FinTech, essentially. And the potential of what it can do to the financial services marketplace, I think, is enormous. But even more so in a place like India, where we have so many people who just don't have access to the financial services marketplace. And it's not just banking, it's even insurance. And the government has done a lot in my mind to provide cheap, for example, cheap insurance, health insurance and even life insurance. But there's a lot more that needs to be done to make sure that they become a part of the banking system as well. So I would say that's the place where I think we will have the biggest impact over the course of the next at least five years, but maybe even 10 years. Okay, your industrial policy, so this is not quite your space, but generally I'm interested in finding out the financial system in India, not that there aren't private banks that are, HDFC, ICICI, et cetera, but predominantly it is the big state banks. A lot of people think, look, for this stage of development in India, maybe that needs to change. What happens when disruption in FinTech really starts taking hold? As a government official, I mean, you've got the bulk of the banking system, state banks, chances are they're not gonna be ready for it. What do you do? See, till two years back, it was an uphill task opening a bank account in India. Even for people like us, we had to approach the bank branch three times to open a branch, open an account. Now 250 million accounts have been opened in the banks in last two years. This, the combination of this digital unique identity, Adhar mobile phones and these bank accounts is completely transformational for our society as well as for the economy. The kind of transformation that is bringing out in the whole country is enormous. Through direct benefit transfer, money is going directly into the accounts of the people. It is also stopping the misuse of subsidy money. It is actually, a lot of abuse of the system is also being removed because of use of these tools now, financial technology. So I think this is simply not a question of just improving the financial system, which is very critical and the government is all for it. See the government today in India wants to use all the possible technologies to improve governance. And use of financial technology is only one part of it. So it is being used to improve governance, to stop all these misuse of subsidy money. You look at the LPG subsidy, huge amount of money has been saved because of targeted DBT. So I think this is extremely important for our economy, society and those funds which are saved is being used for infrastructure development for which we definitely need more funds. What happens to the big state-owned banks that are not ready for it, which could potentially, they could potentially get literally rolled over by the fintechs because thousands of jobs are at stake when, and I've talked to several people about this, I think one of the biggest issues for India as it continues trying to ramp developmentally is where are the jobs? Which sector is going to create jobs? What happens? See all the disruptive technologies like fintech or aggregation like Uber, is a big challenge for the existing large players. They have to adapt to it, whether it's the public sector banks or private sector banks or any of the business. And as a matter of fact, our government wants to promote innovation in the country. We have a big program startup India for to promote startups in the country, which is already third largest ecosystem in the world. But now we are providing the enabling conditions for startups to flourish. So that is our stress on improving innovation, improving the disruptive technology and trying to help change the regulations and the laws, which are actually stopping the further growth of the startups and innovations. So we are absolutely all for it. And if banks, public sector, private sector, or any large company, they don't adapt to these kinds of disruptive technologies, they will suffer. They will suffer, but is the government willing to let some, maybe many of these banks fail? Or are they too big to fail? See, I mean the government is doing everything possible to recapitalize the banks. You know, there are stressed assets. We all know that there is a legacy to it. But everything is being done as required under the basic norms. So I don't think there's any challenge as of now, but it is being addressed by the government and the regulator. Okay, Sri Lama come to you because I know we talked about this earlier on. And this is not really actually along this continuum with the three points entry doing business and also exit. But I think it's so important to talk about. And that is related to what Ramesh was talking about. Injury in India is mired in this situation, has been for some years now where the credit cycle was not working. The capex cycle, it's not working because we had this binge of lending to infrastructure. Many of those projects did not quite pan out the way that a lot of people, let's say, had hoped. Now banks are choked up with NPAs. And look, this is the situation we're in and we're looking at the government for fiscal help. How do we get out of this situation? I think it's a very good question, Maan, because it's very clear that the private investment cycle has not started. And what the government is attempting to do is to prime the pump by putting in public investment into the economy. The issue in my mind is the following, which is that we have seen an uptake in terms of automotive. For example, over the course of the last six months, two-wheeler sales have gone up, passenger vehicle sales have gone up. There's been some, I think, pretty good improvement in terms of consumer durables. But we haven't seen actually an uplift in terms of volume in terms of consumer products, you know, the consumer non-durables. And that, in my mind, is a reflection of the sentiment of the consumer. Typically, you know, when people buy consumer durables, it's because of a one-off payment. So let's say the seventh pay commissions put money into people's pockets. They get a chunk of money. They say, okay, let me do something that's one time which might be to improve the home or buy a two-wheeler or a car or whatever it is. Because India is a consumption-driven economy, we have to see the consumption go up for us to go to the 10% and the double-digit growth rates that Mr. Abhishek was talking about. My personal sense is that the priming of the pump may work. We'll see. I think it's early days yet. So the money that's gone into the infrastructure projects, the expectation is that ultimately, that will lead to putting more money into the consumer's pockets. As capacity utilization goes up in the private sector, which is hovering somewhere in the range of 70% today, when it gets to 85%, 90% that people in the private sector will feel more confident about putting money into the ground, meaning they will start putting money, investment money in terms of whether it's Greenfield, Brownfield projects, whatever that might be. So I think we are a little ways away. What is not helping is the state of the global economy. And our exports performance has actually been pretty poor over the course of the last, you know, say more than a year or so. And so given that context and given the fact that we still haven't seen the private capital pickup, we're probably still some ways away before we will start seeing consumers come back in full force into the economy. Once that happens, I think it'll be a sustained period. The concern in my mind a little bit is that we want to make sure that inflation doesn't come back up. I think we've had a lot of recent good news. The monsoons have been good. The RBI move in terms of 25 basis points reduction. The defense pensions, the seven pay commission. There's lots of reasons as to why we ought to be optimistic. Shouldn't that be a good bump up for production now? I think there's a lot of good reasons as to why we ought to be optimistic. But I think it's too early to make the call yet. That's my take on it. Okay, fair enough. On this whole issue of what's gone wrong with infrastructure, I want to get the government perspective on this because we've talked to a number of people. And it's basically at heart, and maybe it's easier for me to say this because I'm an outsider, right? I'm not going to get pelted or whatever I step on. Please. Starting with the banking. Yes, yes. We're discussing about banks, innovation, new technologies. Since eight, nine years, a lot of banks liquidated or bankrupt outside India. You can see. But a single bank either liquidated or bankrupt. These banks, I'm talking. So our banking management system is very good. That we have to compliment that. Thanks. Correct. Except a couple of graciously. Not sure. He's picking the truth, sir. Okay. I don't want to mention the countries, but I can give the name. I mean, how many banks in different countries you can go through, liquidated or bankrupt. But find out one Indian bank either liquidated or bankrupt. No. Okay. Fair enough. I take your point there. Romesh, back to this whole issue of infrastructure and the problems associated with it. Again, probably easier for me to say because I'm an outsider and if I step out of this room afterwards I'm probably not gonna get pelted. But a lot of people think it boils down to sort of a philosophical issue with the government that with these PPP partnerships what's really missing is that last P, the partnership with the private sector in the sense that private entities feel like the government is going, okay, look, so we've got this infrastructure deficits. We need to build roads, hydros, whatever, right? Come on in, okay? We want your money, but we can't actually guarantee they're gonna make a decent return. In many cases, maybe some of these referents were capped or in, with the case of the law of these NPAs are not even there anymore. This obviously needs to change, doesn't it? Since PPP concept is quite a misunderstood concept, actually. And it's a problem around the world. People don't realize that there's no specific model of PPP anywhere. You can have a very large number of permutations and combinations of public-private partnership. Because ultimately it's about how the risk is being shared by various government and the private sector in what proportion, in what manner. So there are issues everywhere on this. We had a lot of PPP projects in highways. Many of them worked well in the past, but many of them didn't work very well. Because the growth projections were not there and maybe the bidding was very aggressive. Now, government has tried in the last two years to fix a lot of those issues. Those projects which could not take off for any region, those have been closed, and large number of them are being revived now. But I think the important thing is that, we have to work if more government funding is required. Definitely, government is now putting in more funds and the private sector is now taking less risk. But you see, the government has recently taken a decision that any construction project... But there's less risk for the private sector, that could mean commensurably less return? See, every model is different. That the private sector has to work out if it works for them. Sir, I want to add one. 16 years before the first PPP project, Private Public Partnership Project, we implemented in state of Kerala, Kochi International Airport. In the history of infrastructure project, after four years, we started giving dividend. Anybody can go and see Kochi International Airport. This is the model because PPP is future now. And every world countries, including developing or developed countries, they're talking about PPP project. So this is a role model, Kochi International Airport. I want to mention, I'm honoured that I'm a board member there, and a promoter director there. Actually, large number of many litigations were there between the developers and the government agencies. And recently, government decided that whenever there is an arbitration award in favour of the developer, 75% of the money would be given to the developer upfront, even if you go in appeal, and that money goes to the lender, the bank. So it helps bring more liquidity to the system. So this meeting was taken, and the views were taken because this is a listening government. And the cabinet took this decision. This itself is going to inject at least 20, 30,000 crore rupees just like that into the system. So whenever the problems are there, the government is trying to identify those problems and the solutions. And this has been implemented. This is a very good example. This has been done in the last month, month. Real quickly, before I throw it out to the audience here, I mean, one of the problems, obviously, is the legacy of this whole infrastructure, Binge and, I guess, Blumenbust, are the NPAs, right? An issue now is, what do you do about these assets? The whole bad bank idea, okay, Raghuram Rajueno, wasn't a big fan of it. Now, Urjit Patel, NPC, it's back on the table. How does the government feel about this? See, the government has made its views very clear. See, the NPA is a legacy and you have to look at how to resolve whatever you can. There are willful defaulters, but not everyone is a willful defaulter. So you have to try and see that whether the project can be revived. So I think that is the intention of the government, to reduce the NPAs, try to revive projects, help the promoters wherever possible, and of course deal differently with the willful defaulters. So I think that is what government and both RBI are working on. So you're saying the bad bank idea is not back on the table? I'm sorry? The bad bank idea is not back on the table. No, let's see. What is the view of the regulator on that? Yeah. All right, so we've got a couple of minutes left. It's probably time I'm sure you're chomping at the bits. I'd like to get whoever would like to interact with our panelists here, questions, comments. Please just raise your hands, tell us who you are, where you're from, who you represent, and who your question or comment is directed to. Thank you. I'm Datesh Shah from Louis Trifus. We are a big merchandiser of commodities globally, and we trade a lot of commodities in India as well. My question is to Mr. Abhishek, and it has to do with the ease of doing business. I mean, I'll touch upon, there are many pain points, but I'll touch upon just one. And that has to do with contract enforcement in India. I mean, we have so many legal issues with regards to contract performance on commodities that we sell to or buy from within India. And it takes ages to get a civil lawsuit in the end. And it takes ages to get anything substantial worked out in the judiciary in India. So what is it that, and I think if I'm not mistaken, we are probably ranked the lowest on that in the World Bank Index, probably 186, if I'm not mistaken, out of 189 countries. So what is it that the government is doing on the ease of doing business with regards to contract enforcement? Thank you. Contract enforcement, of course, is a very big issue for any business. And recognizing that, in the last two years, the parliament has enacted a law on setting up commercial courts because we know that there is a huge backlog of cases in judiciary, and it takes a pretty long time. For commercial cases now, commercial benches are being set up. Many have been set up in many high courts. Specific, dedicated commercial benches, only for commercial cases. And at the district level also, commercial courts have been set up in many states, and they are being set up in other states. As a matter of fact, we have kept it as one of the indicators on ease of doing business index of the states, whether they have set up these commercial courts. So this is something that is happening now, but this needs to be fast-tracked. Because we don't have enough courts right now, dedicated courts, which will address all these contract enforcement issues. But this is something that's very much on the radar. We are working with the states, and the states are working with the high courts to provide the necessary infrastructure. We have such courts in Mumbai, Delhi, some states like Chhattisgarh, they have been very proactive. But then we are going to work with the states this coming year, because this work was started last year, so that we have more of these courts, and they will be fast-tracked, all these contract enforcement disputes. It sounds like a judicial capacity issue. Anybody else? Next? Sir, please. Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am. Ladies first, please. My question is, I'm actually, I'm Kinika Rwana. I'm involved in, we designed to build of airports, Delhi International Airport, Mumbai Airport, so it's very relevant to the PPP structure. So I wanted to give my input, and actually. Are you with GMR? No, we're a private entity, do the finishes. Ah, okay. So we worked with GMR and worked with GVK, so it's very interesting the contrast. And just from the government point of view, when we talk about PPPs and sort of the decline fall of PPPs, we don't, we actually specialize and we'll make sure that we don't participate in a government-run airport. We've declined a lot of government-run airports. But, and the reason is because, and we all know this, is the bottom, I think the crux of it is obviously corruption, which the Modi government talks a lot about. And I think the liquidity crunch that we're talking about has a lot to do with corruption. My question is that what we find is you have the developer who has a liquidity crunch because of cost overruns, which is always down the line due to corruption through the various elements. They claim the liquidity crunch due to corruption on the government level, and therefore not being paid for their cost overruns. And that's causing a vicious cycle of what I call a vicious cycle of corruption and a decline in infrastructure investment in the airport areas are going down and now government is promoting road works and reducing the investment in airports. And so, is there an entity, or has the government thought of an entity, a solution that I could come up with from the private sector, is some sort of auditing where the government angle on the PPPs come in to the private sector and audit the level of corruptions and cost overruns that they're facing because we all know what's happening to GMR, we all know what's happening to UBK. And the GMR experience went really good because GMR was very hands-on ethical, we worked together very closely. And he tries to avoid that. However, they're very open about the fact that there is this level of corruption with the government. GVK, on the other hand, delegates, I won't say anything more. But the point is that, the point is that you've got private entities who are not being paid up to 20% from our partners, you know, vendor partners such as IBM, ABB, ourselves, we're from Bramco. We, you're not being paid for, let's say, 20% of your project value, which you can imagine an infrastructure project is much lower than your margin. So you're causing a liquidity crunch and you're stifling the private sector completely, which is going to lead to this vicious cycle of decline. So how can you get involved in avoiding this of what the policymaking is? Wrong issue, you're on your own here. See, while not commenting on specific projects and specific companies, I would just like to state that it may be an oversimplification to say that all the liquidity crunch issues in the project are because of corruption. This has to be looked into. So I will not commenting on a specific project, but then there could be a lot of problems like design issues, the way this whole project was designed, whether the developer has delivered on the promises paid, et cetera, et cetera. There could be so many issues. Maybe they have been very aggressive in what they were projecting as the revenues. So one has to look at it on a case-to-case basis. So far as transparency and corruption are concerned, this is a very, very strong determination of the central government today to have complete transparency in the way business is done in the government. But your question was more on an audit system, correct? No, but talking about corruption, I think, love. So there's tremendous stress on doing things in a transparent manner. There is no crony capitalism. No one is going to get an extra favor. No one is getting extra favor because someone is close to somebody. That rules are same. It is a system-driven policies so that it's the same level playing field for everyone. There could be specific issues one can look into. But then I think from a developer's point of view, one has to go see whether where the fault lies. All right. We've got time for probably, let's see here. I'm sorry, sir, we missed you, yes. My name is Thomas Kurvala from R3D Little. I will just make a statement because I see somebody from Uber and a very passionate Malayali here. I'm from Kerala. You cannot take an Uber taxi from Trivandrum Airport because the Trivandrum Airport drivers will harm the Uber driver or the car. It's a fact. And I have to pay 650 rupees from the airport to my home and Uber costs only 175 rupees, less than one third. This is a fact. And comment and your, is there, is there, okay, that's a pretty rough situation for consumers if you're flying into that airport. But is there a question in there for Rachel? How are you, what are you going to do for us? I'm not getting any benefit. I'm still paying three times. Yeah, I can. We have the government here. We have a very passionate Malayali here. We talk great things about Kerala. I'm very happy about that. And we have Uber here. See, I came to know about, can I answer this? Can I answer? Please, sir. I came to know this thing just now. But I can assure you in Cochin airport, it's not like that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But even though you are a Malayali, you are complained, I will discuss with the authorities there what I can do. And I will suggest to the government, I'm also vice chairman of Norca, known resident Kerala Ittafez. So I will discuss with our honorable chief minister regarding this. And as early as possible, I will get some results. I can respond. Perfect. Please, sir. As a matter of fact, these are the kind of issues that this committee on e-commerce is looking at. And there are a whole lot of other issues also relating to this sector. There are many restrictive policies in many states that have been brought to our attention. When the committee finalizes its recommendations, we'll definitely keep in mind that we have practices which are transparent, which are pro-competition. So I think we'll definitely keep all these issues in mind. Okay, more importantly though, on the ground, I mean, look, let's see how I want to go to this airport. I haven't been to Trivandrum airport for 20 years, but it is not the only airport in the world where these issues happen. The reality is that when you're coming in as a new entrant and you're doing something that is very different and where you have established companies that have been doing what they've been doing for a long time. The incumbents are not going to be happy. Unsurprisingly, it affects people and they do behave in certain ways. That are not particularly pro-competition. And so it's incumbent on us to keep going, to keep pushing, to work hard, to demonstrate that we can add value in that city. And over time, we find that these sorts of problems tend to go away. And I think there are ways in which government can help us. But it's not, I think, necessarily, entirely surprising that when you're doing something that's very, very different, which is what Uber is doing and you have to accept that when you're the person coming in and doing something very different, that sometimes it takes time. And there are certain places where it takes a bit longer. And as our CEO Travis would say, in some parts of Europe, I've learned that I just have to be very, very patient. Oh, okay. Patience obviously is a virtue, but let's say I'm a consumer. I suspect he wasn't at the front of the queue when it was being handed out. Anyway, he's learning. Okay, very quickly. Let's say I'm a consumer and I'm very familiar with the Uber experience and I land at this airport and I want the same sort of experience, right? What do I do if I know that, oh my God, I go and try and get into an Uber cab, this guy's gonna get the living crap beat out of him by this existing union guy, even though, hey, better experience, I pay what, a sixth the price? One third. A third the price. But I can't. So the wonderful thing that we found is all around the world, our customers, whether they're on the rider side or the driver side, are very good at telling government when things are broken and they're very active about it. In London, we had a strange situation where the government wanted to introduce minimum five minute wait times and it couldn't have cars in the app. And I think within 24 hours, 150,000 people had signed a petition saying it didn't seem the most sensible way to regulate smartphones. And unsurprisingly, the proposal went somewhere else and didn't arrive. So I think that the wonderful thing about having something that people really care about, whether it's on the driver side or the rider side, is they are very proactive in telling government about how they feel about things. And I'm sure in Trivandrum, we're having an active and excitable dialogue with the government. Dialogue is what we always describe it, but probably a little bit different. But over time, it will change and we'll get there. And there are many ways in which other parts of government can be helpful to us in helping to simplify things. For us, you know, are Uber users organizing there? No? You don't know how powerful the union is in Kerala, my friend. Okay, all right. We've got time for, I think, ah, yes, I'm sorry. Ma'am, please, please. So Sri, thanks for pointing out to me. I'm Neelam. I work for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. And my question is carrying forward from that lady there and her feedback. You know, while the comments went, Mr. Bishek on corruption, that's not the only issue. The key issue also is in large projects, the government officials don't want to sign off completion. And the last payments don't come. And the fear, the fear that I've accepted the completion of a large project is so huge that people just don't do it. And I know she mentioned it, different factors, but this is really pulling us back from bidding. And when the project is big, when it's multi-million dollars project, and you know the bottom 25%, when the project is getting completed, it has to be signed off. We feel somewhere, contract or no contract, which somebody pointed out, or process or no process, that gets stuck. And it's the fear of accepting the closure of completion. Okay. And that is making very difficult for us to do business, especially on large projects, bringing innovative solutions, bringing the technology which matters for today and tomorrow into the country. Ramash, would you like to respond? Actually, one of the things we do very proactively is to get solutions from stakeholders about what are the challenges, what are the problems. We talk to investing companies, existing investors, and we try to address and solve those problems working with the states and other central government departments. So I request her and others to share with us these kinds of issues and problems they are facing in wherever they are facing. And I can assure that we will be taking up with the concerned stakeholders, departments and states in a very proactive manner. Sharing with the government though, ma'am, is not going to solve this issue of fear of signing off on a contract though, correct? We'll address that also, not going to. Okay, what more would you like to see from the government? What more would you like to see from the government? Final payments get moved, that's the most important thing. And it is extremely difficult to do business until this gets settled, because as she rightly pointed out, the last 20% is perhaps more than the profitability of that project. And the delays in it is causing us grief. I just expect from the government that when we sign an agreement with them on a project, let's follow the agreement. Why is it that we need an audit? Say it in the agreement. We need the audit before we pay you your final money. Say it in the agreement that we want you to go get the third party to certify your completion before we pay you. And we are happy because we're walking in with knowing what we need to do to get the closure. Is this a contract law issue then? So this is the kind of feedback that helped the government make that recent decision to give to 75% of the money of the arbitration amount, arbitration reward amount. So these feedbacks are very important for us. Please share with us all this information and I can assure that we will take it up with the concerned ministries and departments. Okay. I mean, I can't say that she's wrong. I mean, obviously it doesn't make sense what she's saying, yeah. Okay, and final question, sir. So all through this session, people have been putting questions which up to their personal companies and that's disappointing because there's nobody's talking about the business in India. I'm a farmer representing farmer interests and when you're talking at business, my question is very simple. Do you build one metro station, one metro in Pune which costs 15,000 crore, 12,000 crore rupees or do you make with that same investment 30,000 custom hiring centers that you have one custom hiring center in every 20 villages? Is the business investment of the government bringing in social equity inclusive growth and that's what the government must be answering. Okay, Bramesh, I'm sorry, it's you again. Yeah. Well, see, various investments are made for various objectives. One can always argue that this could have been spent elsewhere in a better manner. I mean, but then ultimately, you know, it is the governments that take a decision about allocation of these public funds. So far, the private core funds are concerned is the market that decides the allocation, the most efficient use of capital. But when the government is concerned, they have to respond to the various issues. Agriculture is critical, infrastructure is important. Urbanization is very important in our country. We have 31% of the population urbanized and 600 billion people are going to live in urban areas in India by 2030. So we have to provide them with, you know, efficient transport and energy, et cetera, et cetera. So it's like, one can always argue on that. I mean, not everyone will agree, of course. All right. Sadly, unfortunately, we have to, we're just out of time, we could go on for hours, but thank you so much all for joining us at this afternoon and a big round of applause, a big hand for our panel and true Rachel, Ramesh and Yusof, and thank you for joining us.