 All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's dive straight into this session, which is always one of the most interesting sessions to actually kick off the India Economic Summit, because the big question on everyone's mind is, how's the Indian economy doing? And this here, perhaps even so, that's really a question that all of us are seeking for answers from. So we've got a range of really, really great panelists representing different aspects of Indian industry. Shobna, it's always a pleasure to have you with us. We've got a camera that got a close sense on the finger of the pulse of what's happening. Vani is, of course, the doyen of the entire startup ecosystem, which is something that is also very close, of course, to the heart of Mr. Amitabh Khan, who always gets embarrassed when I introduce him as such. But I think it's worth noting that he's probably one of the most dynamic bureaucrats India has ever had, and also the person who should be the coiner of all slogans when it comes to India, because I can't think of a great slogan that has described India that has not actually been drafted by him, whether it's God's only country or incredible India or you name it. All of the names come from him, startup India, of course, the whole lot, a lot of things. So I'm not going to talk much longer because I'd rather get straight to people. Perhaps if each of us could just very quickly summarize our thoughts on where the Indian economy is positioned, and then perhaps we can also try and figure out ways of getting it to become even bigger and move even faster. That includes traffic. Mr. Khan, pardon me, I get you to start off. If you could, you've been hearing all the concerns that have been expressed by many people about the state of the economy and our things really going well, and obviously the government seems to be taking on board that there is something to think about if not to be concerned about, which is why virtually every Friday or Saturday we've been seeing these announcements coming up last month or two. What is the state of the economy and what would be your concern of anything? Vikram, if you look at the last five years, India's economy has grown at an average of about 7.5 percent, and if you were to go back in time a little bit and look from about 2005, 2006, till now, India's lifted close to about 300 million people above the poverty line. But from the last quarter of 2017-18, when India grew at about 8.1 percent, India's growth rate fell to 5 percent in the first quarter of 2019-20. And since then, both the regulator, that is the Reserve Bank of India, and the government have taken a series of measures to take India back to a high trajectory growth rate. The RBI has dropped the repo rate from about 110 basic point from about 6.5 to 5.4 percent. But there are limitations to monetary policy, and therefore the government stepped in and took a series of measures. It did a series of economic boosters, a vast range of them starting with capitalization of the public sector banks, merging some of them, increasing the depreciation on vehicles from 15 to 30 percent, and a range of other innovative measures including a package for exports and including a package for housing. But the last economic booster was really about bringing India's corporate tax structure down to the best regime in the world. That is, if you were to start a manufacturing or service unit now from 1st October till about 2023, you get a tax rate of about 15 percent, which is an effective tax rate of about 17.1 percent. And if you were to otherwise invest in India, the average rate of tax would be about close to 25 percent. India's tax rate regime is actually on par with Ireland, which is the best tax regime in the world. So India has done everything possible to take India's tax regime, India's growth back to a high trajectory growth rate. And I think many more structural reforms are in the offing. The government has pushed for public sector disinvestment, I can tell you. We've pushed for asset monetization in a very big way, airports, roads, transmission line for power grids. Our belief is that instead of greenfield projects, investors must come into brownfield projects and government must keep itself out of business, government must be a great facilitator and a catalyst, and you'll see many of these assets being put out in the marketplace. For many of you people to invest, government is pushing for structural reforms in the agriculture, mining, coal, many, many of these sectors, and you'll see many of these reforms unfolding in the coming months. But the key really is to work not merely on monetary policies, but also bring in rapid structural reforms in India's economy so that we create the base for long-term growth, not for five years and take India to a $5 trillion economy, which the Prime Minister has set as a task for us by 2024, not for a $10 trillion economy by 2030, but take India to a rate of growth of 9% to 10% per annum for a three-decade period, which will enable us to lift a vast segment of our people above the poverty line. That's really well laid out and obviously that's the goal that all of us have. I'm just going to turn to each of you now one by one and Shubna, let me start with you. I think a lot of people in industry responded particularly well, I think, to the corporate task, but not just because it helps the bottom line, which obviously it does, but because many of them seem to be saying, well, I'm glad the government is listening and is at least acknowledging that maybe there are problems and therefore things need to be done. If you had to come up with a wish list and find some of the things that are still wrong, because quite often when you talk in forums like this and otherwise at least on record on TV, everybody in industry say things are absolutely fine, everything is perfect, things are great, and then the minute the cameras are switched off, they say, well, actually, there are a whole bunch of problems. So what are the problems? What is it that Mr. Khan should try to fix next? You just said that we already said the problem. No, these cameras are not necessarily streaming outside, so ignore the cameras and let us candidly. But I'm under no illusion who has filled this room. It's one man here. So having said that, I think that I'm going to dub pretty much behind some of the things that he said. And remember here, this panel is, everyone is very different. Amitabh represents the government and a part of the government that's highly dynamic. Gautam is a consultant in the nicest way, because we work with you a lot. And Vani, of course, is a venture. What do you have against all the other consultants, just out of curiosity? No, no, no, no, no. I have seen many of them sitting here, including in the policy. No, what people mostly say, you know, you always, consultants are, you know, there to give you advice. But we're going to carry on. Don't worry about the cameras. I'm not going to get into trouble just on that, because he's a good friend. But having said that, I think here's the perspective that I'm someone who has to roll up their sleeves every day and really work in this country, provide jobs, make sure that our shareholders are happy. So, you know, there's so many challenges out there. And then I used to sit and listen to, you know, the statements that were being made and about this $5 trillion economy. And here the economy is growing at, you know, 5% and even 7% wouldn't cut it. And I was thinking, where's that perspective coming from? I mean, is there some mismatch? What is it that we're not seeing? And then after that, I think my epiphany was one when the Prime Minister said, private sector's not evil. We need you guys. Big statement, you know, and I think that's the first thing. When you talked about it, Vikram, when you said it was not the signaling of corporate tax, but the signaling of we want to work with you. And I think that's most important, because if you're asking me to give a litany of problems and things that very difficult to do at this meeting, and more than anything else, my problems are not your problems with that each one of us have unique problems to our industry. And I think that, but the fact that the government is open enough to talk about it, that to us is a big signaling. And that came, you know, well, first I know that while we did praise the budget, and I praised it more from the fact that I really like the FM and to be a woman financed up there to me, that was a big hooray moment. But after that, what she brought in really signaled the fact that she's understood the economy and what we need to do. Does it stop there of corporate tax? No, there's a lot more that needs to be done. There's a lot more that needs to be done at the state level to start being fixed, because we are a federal government. So how will the states work with this? And I think in each industry, I can talk about health care. And I'm talking about, you know, when Arun Jaitley told me why is no Indian investing more in health care and they're all being acquired brownfield by, you know, private equity. So he signaled that and I thought, you know, so then he said, Apollo's materially significant, what are you doing? And then I said, but you know, at this, when you're regulating pricing, how does it work for us? You know, because you're stopping free spirit and, you know, the economy and how if you really want animal spirits back, then I went back and realized, you know, so this is the point when they signaled and when I was president of CII, we worked every other day. We'd go to the ministry and say, but you know, our corporate taxes are not competitive. You cut it and then they really cut it. And what have we done? So at that point, I stepped up and said, what is the cost of us not achieving that five trillion? And that's the perspective I want everyone in the room to have, that what's the cost of us not doing it? So what is it when the government is talking about creating Aishwan Bharat and all those, so maybe we should change business models. Why do we want only our business model to be effective? Why do we have to go there and say, well, give us these breaks. So I'm sure that there's enough in this country and in this world, you know, with it's a brave new world. Everyone is challenging everything. And these are things that, you know, the cost of us not getting to five trillion really means that they're going to be more people in poverty, that we're going to fall back in terms of our per capita. There's going to be a huge amount of, you know, we need jobs. We need to create 12 million jobs. Where is that going to come from? Where is it going to come in terms of international trade? We'll get left behind on all the new supply chains that get created. It'll be the Vietnam's. It'll be all our regions that are going to grow faster than us. So that's the last point I want to leave. The cost of us not stepping up and doing it is too much. So I completely want to believe in this and see what we can do. Right, I think that's really helpful. Gautam, if I can turn to you next, you're, of course, managing partner at McKinsey. So without going into the details of consultants and what they should do and not to do, but there is a slightly related point to this. One is to have great ease of business, which Mr. Kanth in particular and many others have been really driving. And India's ranking on ease of businesses has improved significantly. It is one thing to have low and comparative tax rates. And as again, as Mr. Kanth said, you know, corporate tax is at the island level for new manufacturing companies. But there's a third thing which is the simplicity of the structures, the simplicity of taxation, the simplicity of regulations. In an ideal world, you should not require consultants to be help you to navigate the maze. And you should be able to just say, well, it's so simple and obvious. This is what the tax labs are. That's it. No exemptions, no rules, surcharges, no cesses, thing. Anybody can figure it out in 30 seconds. Would that be one of the areas which you think, perhaps, we should do more on? So I think if I can take that to, well, taxation I think is one part of I think what it takes to be competitive. You see, ultimately to me, I think the most important thing is really how do we drive competitiveness and productivity in the country? And I think taxation is an important piece, but by any means, there are many, many other things that go into it that have to do with land, labor, and financial sector reform. If I can just step back for a minute, and I think everybody is talking about the slowdown and the gloom and doom. But let's just talk a bit about the future. And I think if we have to catalyze India to become the third largest economy by, say, 2030, I think there are two lenses I think we should take. I think one is productivity and second is employment. Because I think if you have to get to 9%, I think employment growth would be roughly about 1.5%, and then you need productivity growth in the economy of about 7.5%. Now the good news is if you go back in our history, in 2000, 2005, this country actually had 7.5% annual productivity gain. So it is not something that has not been achieved before. But having said that, if we have to deliver on that productivity and employment gain, I think we need some pretty bold moves. And let me just give you three top of the mind, and we can expand if this time. First, I think it's really housing a real estate and construction. I think it is not a surprise that after agriculture that supports 45% of the population in India in a construction and real estate is the single biggest employer in this country. And I think that sector alone has the potential to create about 50 million jobs in the next decade. You see, we need about 120 million jobs in the next decade for us to keep unemployment under 3%. So roughly think of roughly about 12 million jobs a year, 1 million jobs a month. And I think so over the next decade, we need to create about 120 million jobs. And real estate and construction has the potential to create about 50 million jobs. But that requires massive reform on land availability, taxation, transaction cost, FSID regulation, et cetera, et cetera. So that's one big, big agenda. I think the second big agenda is what I think Mr. Kahn and others have been talking and doing a lot recently is really around how do you make manufacturing competitive? You see, you look at Vietnam. We mentioned Vietnam. Manufacturing as a percentage GDP in Vietnam is now up to 22%. China is at 27, we are at 17, right? And I think the good news is that because of the trade war and the crisis going on, I think India should aspire to have $100 million in just mobile handset exports by 2030. We should aspire to have 20% global share. Vietnam, by the way, has 11% share. China has 50% share. We have 1%, right? If you can shoot for 20% global export share, that's $100 billion industry out there. But to get that, it's not just taxation. I'm sorry to say it's just not taxation. There's a half a dozen more things we have to do. So that's a big thing. Third, I talk about privatization. You see, if you look at the total market cap of the entire public sector system in India, a listed, non-listed, it's about $300 billion. We think half of that should be privatized over the next decade. So you're talking about $30 billion a year of money that should be raised, right? I know it's a political hot potato, but we need to address that. I think that has massive ramifications. Productivity in the private sector, any sector you pick, is three to five times more than public sector. So it has implications for release of land, release of productivity, release of capital. It's a triple whammy, right? Let me just stop there. Just don't get the idea around what we need to do to get to this point. Last thing I'd say, you see, our investment rates, it's not a surprise as we all know our saving rates have been on a decline. They're down by 9% over the last seven, eight years. We are now at 28th, China is at 46th or 44th. I think that's a massive agenda. How do we raise level of domestic savings in the country? I think that requires deeper financial reform, increasing penetration in what is called contractual savings and so forth. So I can get to that later, but just think that like we have made a big move on the tax structure, I think we need to have four or five big moves as a country if we have to get any of those to our objectives. Okay, I'm tempted to ask you if you, I'm gonna come to Vani in the startup sector, which naturally is close to both her heart and my heart for obvious reasons. But before we come to that, any reactions to the two statements you've heard so far? No, I think these are very important and very valid points that have been made. First of all, I totally agree that our productivity rates have to go up and this requires major, major structural reforms and one of the key things that the government has really pushed for is making India easy and simple. We've scrapped a lot of rules, regulations, procedures, acts, laws. We've scrapped about 1400 laws in this country. No country has done it. We've jumped up 65 positions in the World Bank, ease of doing business. Our target is to reach the top 15 the next two years and reach the top 25 in the next five years and we'll push this relentlessly. We've also digitized vast sectors of our economy. Look at our direct tax, it's all cashless and paperless. Look at Ayushman Bharat, which is where we are ensuring 500 million Indians that's more than the population of USA, Mexico, Europe all put together. Totally paperless, cashless, digital payment. It's all paperless, cashless. So we are pushing for productive efficiency in the Indian economy. But more important, I think, is that we are pushing. It's not a political hot potato anymore. We're pushing for public sector disinvestment in a very radical way. Neethi Ayog has recommended over 55 public sector companies for disinvestment and I can tell you that the cabinet itself has approved over 26 of them for disinvestment. In government, you need to go through process in a very, very transparent, competitive manner which is being undertaken and you will have soon a very, very vast number of the public sector companies getting privatized. But more than that, more than public sector disinvestment, my personal belief is that we need to push for asset monetization. Government is good at some things. Government is very poor in operation and maintenance and that is, therefore, we are pushing for roads, transmission lines, airports and number of them to be managed and operated by private sector enterprises. So we are all for bringing in productive efficiency in the country and without that, it'll be very difficult to achieve nine to 10% growth. India has done this for short periods of five to six years earlier, but if you want it on a continued sustained basis over a three-decade period, you need to push for productivity growth and this is really the key. But more than that, I think India needs structural reforms in a range of areas. Agriculture was talked about. There's a committee under the chief minister of Maharashtra and I think you'll soon have its recommendation. The prime minister has appointed this committee. You'll see, because it is a state subject, you need to bring the states on board and therefore you'll have that. We are pushing for labor reforms. We have over 54 laws. They're all being brought under the ambit of four laws. One of them, the wages, one has already been approved by the parliament. The other three will move to the parliament in the next parliament session. So you'll just have four, instead of 54 different acts laws, you'll just have four laws vastly simplified and we've pushed for a whole range of reforms under mining, under coal, under oil and gas, all these sectors. And one after another, we'll push relentlessly for structural reforms. Right, that's really interesting. Vani, if I can come to you now on the startup sector and also, how is the sector doing itself? But also, a slightly broader point that sometimes made, including by people in government, which is to say, you need to realize that the economies are changing really fast. As technologies are changing, so is economy changing. While there may be certain sectors that are slower, not doing that well, manufacturing, real estate, automobiles, there are other parts which are absolutely buzzing with excitement, like what he spoke about the digital sectors, in particular, the cheapest data in the world, the opportunities that come up from that, the opportunities that arise from the India stack. Are you seeing a lot of that? That there is actual large pockets of excitement in sectors of the Indian economy that actually might well become the defining sectors going forward, whether it's biotech or AI or areas like that. I mean, the way I think about it is, technology is always a means to an end and every sector today has an intersection of how it's gonna get transformed through technology, even something like real estate, if we were to take it, right? And there is an healthcare agree and many of these sectors where we didn't see a lot of startup activity, we are seeing to the cause of data, data, cheapest data rates that we have, what is it doing? It's changing accessibility. In the moment you can change accessibility and you can change the affordability with that, then new business models are possible into sectors and new innovation is possible. And in the context of productivity, thank you. So in the context of productivity, one of the things that I see important with respect to where all these startups are, it's important to understand how the whole gig economy model will be relevant in India and is relevant in India and how that becomes in its entirety a large employee base and also how and what that means in terms of entrenched corporates from hiring and creating innovation, right? So the way I look at it, the $5 trillion or a $10 trillion in 2030 benchmark markers that we have, is not possible without innovation and innovation starts with someone thinking differently which is easier for a young company to do, to begin with. But over time, how does that chaos, which is important in a startup context, become something that is leverageable and scalable? And this is really where one of the topics that I've been spending a lot of time and in fact I think last time I was in Delhi spoke briefly with Mr. Kant also, is structural reform around how these startups access capital, especially in the context of public market capital which is not being conducive compared to what China has done or other countries have done. If we believe that we want to encourage startups which I think the government has done a great job of and this is important for driving innovation and transformation and change and it does have an impact in creating employment and creating and spreading economic growth, then I think the cycle of capital access which we have done something structurally well recently and there are many other things that we haven't even addressed. I think that's very important to consider. All right, Mr. Kant, let me just get you in, because I know startups are also very close to your heart. Now obviously there are certain things that India has done very effectively. You've been very responsive for example to this entire question of angel tax when that came up and simple things like just registering as a startup and personal story, I applied online on a Tuesday and on Thursday I got an SMS saying you're registered and I was like, what is this? And that was so hats off to some of those things but they are still problems, some of which Vani referred to and the second big question has to come that the government wants to use startups as one of the major engines for economic growth which is fine. If it also wants to use that as an engine for employment then the question is, are these going to be able to, if 500 million people move away from agriculture to find other employments, can they really be accommodated in sectors like the startup sector? Vikram, we've tried to do everything possible to create a very vibrant, very dynamic and a very energetic startup movement in India and we've been able to actually create the second best ecosystem in the world. And while the Silicon Valley may be very innovative it hardly has any challenges, there are no challenges in Silicon Valley whereas all the challenges of the world are in India the challenge of providing water, the challenge of converting waste into energy, the challenge of plastic into something more into a cyclical industry, all those challenges are in India and one of the great things that's happening in India is that the startups are really finding solutions to the unique problems of India, how to provide seed and fertilizer to our farmers on a real-time basis based on weather and soil conditions. There's one girl whose Aditi who runs in bibe uses artificial intelligence to track every single student in the state of Rajasthan much like we track Uber vehicles and it's led to a radical improvement in learning outcomes and you've seen ather energy in Bangalore who's produced the smart electric scooter which has the potential to be the Tesla of the scooter world and look at Baiju, you know in five years time it's a five billion company and where Mark Zuckerberg has invested his personal money. So I think the India's young entrepreneurship is truly top class, I mean it's unparalleled and you know they are doing some extraordinary work and we've been able to create the best possible ecosystem. We've started this fund of funds, we've done away with angel tax, everything possible. A lot of family enterprises are now investing what Vani is talking about is we'll soon have a solution to this, how does public through IPOs get into funding of startups? We'll ensure that startups will never be start of funds in India. We'll build up that ecosystem as well. We thought start of fund of funds will take care but wherever there are shortcomings we are working on them and we'll ensure that Indian startups become the most dynamic, this becomes the most dynamic ecosystem in the world. Great, I'm gonna just sort of go in and get each one of you to maybe come up with one specific suggestion that maybe worth out taking and if that happens we will certainly be proceeding and to become much bigger, much faster, much better. So one specific take away if you would like to leave before I start getting questions also. One is, yeah, I think that we're underballing our cities that the cities are really economic generators. If we can take those in isolation and look at them almost as corporations. The big cities that we have in India, the hundred new cities that they're talking about and look at them in terms of employment but first fix what needs to be done and create a structure. If Nithi, I know that you're doing that whatever you did with your districts but if we start looking at that and creating municipal bonds start investing from there I think that would be a great income generator. It would create better infrastructure that we would be able to fund and it would be a better place for all the startups to come to. The second big question I have is that you know I come from a pretty mature industry and I feel that the challenge for existing industry and those that are listed is what is it that we need to be thinking of a digital strategy? Are we thinking enough in our companies of the new change that will come that it's not just digital but it'll become omnie and then it'll just become ubiquitous to merge with us. Are we creating enough energy and talent and not just at a startup level with this? And my third thing is that I never again from being in this, while we want to be young in our thinking how do you work it? You cannot have companies listing unless they make money with that otherwise how do you expect shareholders to actually put to get confidence in a business model of an Uber in India if it lists what happens? And so maybe we need to think that some directional shift. So these are the three things that I would like to put out there. Somewhat linked to what value especially about startups how do you incentivize and get startups to be able to access capital without having a bit of cash flows because sometimes those don't come. I think I'm gonna get to add to that but. Maybe just perhaps two closing comments. I think I'm by the way all. I mean there's not necessarily closing comments because we'll have time. Okay, good, okay. So no, I'm all for startups but I do want to make two other related points. I think one is, I think if you look at experience in Japan in the 90s and China over the last two decades these economies grew by building large world-class competitive firms. So I think why we have to encourage the startups from the bottom of the system we have to equally focus on building large world-class competitive firms from this country. This country has about 500 half a billion plus firms today for us to get to 10 trillion we need about 2000, right? And I think I would suggest that I think that ought to be one of the national priorities like it has been in China and elsewhere about how do we create truly world-class large competitive firms that by the way are 10 times more productive and by the way create more jobs and actually create a virtual cycle of income productivity and so forth. So that's one thought. Second is technology. I think your point technology is a means so while we talk about startups let us not lose sight of the bigger opportunity pool or as big an opportunity pool in transforming the existing companies using technology. So I think each and every one of the value chains is up for fundamental disruption. You don't even retail. We didn't talk about retail and trade. That has a potential to create about 25, 30 million jobs in this country in the next decade. But because if it can actually take advantage of technology and really drive supply chain efficiencies, get pricing down, improve productivity in the front line, you know, it can create 25, 30 million jobs, right? So I think I would just remind ourselves that technology not for startups only but also for digitizing our entire current existing economy and the system. Right, I'm gonna come to that funding part and Bunny again just pause, but just these two points. A, the concept of how do you allow small companies? The economics have been referred to this, right? Too many companies are dwarfs and don't get the chance. They don't really scale in the manner that they should and that should be a priority. And smart cities and cities in general obviously something close to your heart. No, I think Vikram, if India has to grow at high rates, urbanization is really the key. And urbanization is gonna happen whether we like it or not, because every minute there are 30 Indians who are moving from rural areas to urban areas. And if you go by Mackenzie's report on urbanization, you're gonna get about close to 700 million Indians getting into the process of urbanization in the next five decades. That is India's challenge is to create two and a half Americas in a very innovative and sustainable manner. How do you recycle your water? How do you do compact dense urbanization? How do you do it on the back of public transportation? And therefore much of what we've done in the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, this new city close to Aurangabad, Auric city you should go and see is top-class infrastructure or Dholera and Gujarat. It's all top-class infrastructure. Plus the dedicated freight corridor which will get completed this year will put goods. Goods produced in the northern part of India take 14 days to reach the ports in the western coast of India. But by end of this year, you'll have goods reaching within 14 hours. So the paradigm shift will be from 14 days to 14 hours. So urbanization is really the key and I totally agree with him that you need very big, it's not just the startup movement, but you really need competitive companies which manufacture to size and scale and which penetrate global markets. The essential point is that no country in the world, post-World War II has grown without exports. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, all have grown on the back of exports. Now somehow Indian companies, they seem to think that India has a vast domestic market, but we must all realize that while India has a vast domestic market, the unit value you get abroad is 10x of what do you get in the domestic markets. So Indian companies must have the guts and the courage to penetrate global markets and this would require a huge amount of competitiveness which we must create in them. And you asked us to give one point and my one point would be that the government has done its bit. It's brought in a one tax regime across the country, is brought the best possible tax regime in the country, in the world today. India's tax corporate tax regime is the best in the world. Now the private sector must do its bit. The private sector is sitting in vast inventories. We have by one stroke of pen improved the bottom line of these companies. This year itself, many companies, their balance sheet will jump up very hugely and significantly and therefore these companies, the owners on them is to cut prices, reduce inventories, become competitive, sell off all the stocks and create new capacities in this country. The government has done its bit, the private sector must respond. All right, I'm gonna throw that back to the private sector also in a couple of minutes and get people to respond. But Vani just wanna come to you again on, related to what was being said by many actually, how do you scale, how do you get the funding? Now for startups, there is, yes, there is a problem that startup fail and that's not unusual. Startups fail everywhere in the world. You'll have 60, 70% of startups failing. One of the things that in India we may want to think about is how many of them are able to, not worry about the failing as much as are they being able to scale? Are they becoming global companies the way many in China have done or in America have done? What are the bottlenecks in enabling them to do that? And if the startups are to take Mr. Khan's challenge of saying, okay, we gotta become global companies, what are the roadblocks that they face? You know, I want to comment on that, but in fact I was planning on commenting on the 70, 80% that do fail and it's something that never gets discussed and there is really not any thought given to it. And everything is a cycle and if you want innovation to kind of regenerate itself then fail fast is also very important and today if we talk about structural challenges for a company to fail, it is immense, it is significant and these are young companies that don't even know then how to next process and a year or two of their life, if not more, is trapped in managing a closure of a company and that's wasted productivity, talk about productivity of our youngest and brightest minds and wasted talent. So I do think it's important that the one suggestion is that knowing that there is 60 to 70, in fact the failure rate is higher than that in five years at least 80% of the startups will fail. Now if you know that already then structurally how do you enable that in a way that is fair to all the stakeholders and that awareness is there and there's hardly ever any discussion or comment or activity from a policy perspective to enable that and I do think that's important because there is enough data and research to show that that experience and second time entrepreneurs, even the founders of GO which was a colossal failure then created Netscape and many, many, many other innovations. So I think being able to then see how we can make that happen is important and so to me the bookends of how do you help companies scale for which capital access is a challenge and then how do you enable companies to fail fast quickly is also a challenge. So those are the two things I think that's important to there is policy work that can help make that happen. Now the point about being competitiveness, I think it's a evolution, you see. I think if I think of myself as a first time entrepreneur it would have been unlikely to start with going global or going big and all of that. There is step by step function and today we are already seeing whether it's Ola or Oyo and Qofit and many of these companies going global and being bold about it. And many of them have been able to do that because they have spent 10 years already as an entrepreneur. So there is a cycle time to that and that cycle time is not short. It's five to 10 years before a company can even consider going global. But I think we have enough in the funnel right now that that's gonna happen. But even there for those companies that go global structurally to then say how do they capitalize? How do they bring that capital into India and take that outside of India is actually not that simple. Right, Mr. Kant actually I'm just gonna tire both what you said about how do you get private sector and private industry needs to come in and invest and do a lot more with what Vani was just saying about failure. Because sometimes you hear from many people that the price of failure in India is very high and people will make business decisions. Somebody may want to come out and invest. Sometimes those decisions will work and a lot of the times as Vani was just referring to it will not, it could be a bad decision. A business could fail, something could happen. It could be a bank could make a loan and that loan turns into an NPA. And sometimes there's a feeling that those things tend to get penalized very hard. Sometimes there are criminal consequences for things that may be just a bona fide business decision that went wrong. Is this something that the government should think about because once it becomes easier to fail and less risks to failure, that's the time when people may be more willing to unleash animal spirits and actually take risks, which is what you want them to do. So Vikram we must accept failure as a necessary concomitant of the startup movement. It's inevitable that vast number of startups will fail. The Indian psyche, the Indian families, the Indian mentors must accept failures and the integral part of the evolution of the startup movement. I mean, we support a lot of tinkering labs. We support close to about, through Hutter Innovation Mission we've supported over 4,000 tinkering labs. We've supported over 150 incubation centers. Many of the incubation centers may not succeed but we take it as a part of it in the government. And similarly in the private sector enterprise, many companies will fail and that's why we brought in the insolvency and bankruptcy code wish to my mind is a very revolutionary evolution of an institution in India so that if you fail the bankruptcy code must take care of you. But it's important that there should be no Indian entrepreneurs who are also used to taking money and not repaying them to financial institutions or not putting their own equity. And therefore it's very important that we bring in a certain amount of discipline in this as well. Also, as far as risk taking is concerned the government is fully convinced that we must ensure that there are the animal spirits of the private sector. We must back up all good entrepreneurs. We must ensure that there is backing to the core and that's why one of the things that the government has done is to institute a committee pending by any financial institution said to be a criminal act, this administrative committee will wet it and therefore the government wants to ensure that nothing is termed as a criminal act which is a failure of the business as such and the bankruptcy code should take care of many of the private enterprise failures and new causes. Great, I've been doing economic discussions around the World Economic Forum for about 15 years and this is one of the things that frequently comes up especially from Indian businessmen but also from foreign investors who are all wanting now to invest in India or make in India and that's what the government is trying to encourage and you keep hearing about these things about there's still red tape at the grassroots, there's still tax terrorism or regulatory problems at the grassroots, there's still a possible problem with sometimes regulatory or policy flip flops. It's not something new, it's something we've been hearing for 10 to 15 years. Is it getting better or is it getting worse or is it where it was? Well, maybe two perspectives but firstly, as I think Mr. Khan said, I think if you look at the use of doing business indicators I think that gives you some hope. Having said that, I think it's interesting, I was at dinner, I think three weeks ago with the chairman of a Vietnamese, sorry, Taiwanese technology equipment manufacturing company and we were having this conversation about why are you thinking of India as the world is thinking of a second option compared to China and I think India was not on this chairperson's radar and I think I asked him, where are you thinking of going? He said Vietnam and then we spent next 10 minutes understanding why that is the case and when I pressed, I said, no, we had a team go there, we even looked at a site but we thought we just couldn't find either the access to the land or frankly even labor. By the way, we could not find the volume of people locally there in the site we were looking at. So they were quick to reject it, right? And I think it just was to me a reminder that we have a lot more work to do and I think to really position India, I think as a competitive attractive destination, I think the opportunity is very much there, I made the point and I think it is urgent. I think as the government has recognized, I think the prime minister has made comments as late as last week in the U.S. I do think there's an opportunity there but it does require us to do very focused work and my suggestion would be to pick a few hot buttons. You look at just the, for example, manufacturing electronics import bill, right? That is expected to be about $150 billion in the next five, seven years. You know, there are four, five categories there. We've talked about that, whether it's solar panels, whether it's mobile electronics, whether it's, you know, they're a handful of things. Could we just take those as a high priority and say, how do we offer a combination of land, labor, tax, logistics, power and set up a few zones where frankly, we can out compete whether it's Vietnam or anything else. So that's where I think we need to go. We're not there yet. I don't think people have lined up against our doors to come in but it can be done. Gopna, why are people not lining up at the doors despite all the things that Mr. Kanth and others have been trying to do? And he said it's now for private sector to step up and make the investments. What would be holding them back? Would it be those regulatory and other things that I was talking about? Is it just that the business opportunities aren't there? I see why Shali's sitting there. Sorry, I see why. And I think that it's also because the scare that the governments can midway after you've made all these investments suddenly pull the rug under you. So you know that certainty is a big, that is keeping a lot of people away. So, and I see it even in us making investments suddenly if their price gap, suddenly if they're looking at the way that, so to me that would be not taking anything away from you. I still believe that we're entrepreneurs, we're in it for risk. We don't expect a red carpet. We expect some potholes, but we're taking risks so that we can, you know there because we can make profit at the end of it with this. So, but there has to be some amount of certainty that when the government stands behind anything. And then also so much of the payments that are out there that need to be paid. One is that you invest and you complete a job and all of a sudden it goes into a spiral and what happens then? And there are lots of payments. I know that the government is after the corporate tax, that's the next big thing that they've addressed, saying that you know the dues are out there. If they're the payments are authentic and need to be paid, they should be paid because that's what keeps the cycle of the economy ticking. So these two to me is probably something keeping them away. I think taking nothing away from all the inspirational stuff you've said. Vani, you want to add something to that and I want to get thoughts from as a count to one. Not necessarily specific to that because, but I do think if we think about startups in other countries, defense and government have been also big customers. And I think that hasn't quite happened yet in India and that's also something. Maybe this is not the right forum to talk about why and what could we do. But that's a big sector that could also spur and in turn be able to create a broader, more mass level value and impact. Mr. Kanth, sort of sedition that seemed to be coming from that. And so obviously the reduction of inclusive tax administration or regulatory administration is something which has presumably been on the government's radar. It was referred to in the budget also. Policy flip flops is something again which I think would hold back. So we're trying to figure out why, what would be holding back? A rush of investments or people spending because the opportunity is obvious, right? Where else are you going to get 1.3 billion people in a market like this and the government wanting to drive investments? So what are the things that are still causing hand breaks to that? I assume the things that you're looking at and saying we need to get those things out one by one. So I think Vikram Gautam Kumra met this Tavani's businessman before the corporate tax cut was made. You know, and he's always too early in the day. So I met three Tavani's businessmen at the Asia Business Council three days back. And all three of them said that with this tax cut, and bringing it as the best tax regime in the world now, and the fact that there will be no exemptions, you've brought in predictability and consistency. You've said that there will be no exemptions at all. There'll be just a flat tax rate. And the tax rate till 23 will be the best tax rate in the world. And every single company today will look at India for investing here. This is what bring in predictability, consistency of policy. So by one stroke of pen, actually India has made itself the most predictable, most consistent, and the least taxed country in the world. I mean, there's no reason why India should not get fresh investments from, and incidentally, FDI is not foreign direct investment. Gautam, let me tell you. FDI in India has grown by 66% at a point when FDI across the world has fallen by 13%. I'm not blaming investments from abroad. It's the Indian enterprises. Indian enterprises are sitting on huge inventories. They must cut prices. They must cut out their inventories and ensure that more capacity is added now. And that is what the corporate tax has done. It's added, actually, if you look at it in reality, what has the corporate tax done? It's added huge impetus to their balance sheet. All right, let me try and get some thoughts from those. Yeah. Good morning to everybody. My name is Samar Sikha. I'm here in my capacity as a global shaper, the founding curator of the Navi Mumbai Hub. First of all, thank you for creating such a wonderful summit as the chair over here. My question to you is something you mentioned this morning about inequality and access to health care. What is, that is one of India's challenges. What is the role that Apollo hospitals is specifically playing in reducing that inequality? Because there would be a certain section of the society that could argue that Apollo hospitals are probably contributing to the inequality and access to health care because it's a massive financial burden on the consumer who visits, especially given that we have seen models like Narayan Hadralia where we have made the most complex cardiac surgery the cheapest and most affordable in the world. And in light of what Mr. Khan said that the government has done as a bit, say, with the Ayushman Bharat scheme and the private sector. I don't want to make this specifically about health care beyond the point, but you want to quickly respond to that and I'll try and get one or two more questions. Vikram is sitting here. We managed three of the states and we've done 1.7 million telehealth. No one in the world is even close to what Apollo has done and this is done at a no profit. So we work with the government in partnerships. We are doing it state by state because we think that digitalization and health, we're working with them on drones to create, so to reduce inequalities. And I think all the others while they're trying to step up of the other hospitals and that's what we really appreciate. Apollo by virtue of being so big and in everything, we've actually gone way forward and I do believe that we need companies like, I mean, we need corporates in every sector or from the, you know, in private sector to be able to get out there and compete and do the best in the world if you want, like the proton. No one had the courage in the private sector in the world to put it up and we did because we said there's a 2%, it helps cancer and let us see what we can do. So you have to address every end to reduce inequality. That's fine. Okay, gentlemen there and then yeah. Hi, I'm Jedev Galla, member of parliament from Andhra Pradesh and also vice chairman of the Amaraja Group. And my question is actually to Gautam, I believe that the Achilles heel to the Indian economy seems to be rural consumption at the moment and the 6,000 rupees a year is not really going to increase rural consumption dramatically and with MSP prices not really increasing year on year and becoming less competitive globally, how are we supposed to address this issue which seems to be driving the economy down quite a bit? Okay, let's get a couple of comments and then we only have two minutes more and then we can wrap. Yeah, if you're going to set the mic here, I'll just get these three ladies to just say something. Yeah. And maybe I can respond to that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you want to start this? I think maybe just a quick read. I think you're very right. You see the issue you raised is about rural distress and I think to me there's no doubt that we've had that pressure for the last many years and I think there is a real imperative both on MSP price increase, which I know is a complex issue and there is no running away from driving agricultural productivity which is also an opportunity. I think having said that, I think there is a short-term view but if I look at the medium to long-term view, I think none of the countries in the world have really been able to drive that level of economic growth rate without moving populations massively away from agriculture into manufacturing and services. So I think there's just no wishing away from that whether we look at US now where it's only less than 1% or look at even Taiwan where, by the way, the percentage of people, sorry, Vietnam where the percentage of population in agriculture is down to 40% from 65% just in the last two decades, by the way. They're doing a great job. So I think long-term that's where to go but in the short-term, I couldn't agree with you more. I think that something more needs to be done. I wish I knew the answers but that could be a driver of the consumption we need right now. All right, I'm nearly out of time. So quick, quick. So I'm Neelam Dhawan, I'm a tech person and I advise many companies big and small. When I look at the technology startups, one of the biggest things which is holding us back from becoming global companies and global startups is the respect for IP created in India. We are able to raise far more money if we register, do patents in US than doing patents over here. Just like we did made in India for manufacturing, we need to think about how can we do made in India for technology products and for the IP developed here is going to really help thousands of startups. Quickly get a reaction from that. I think that's really interesting. The drive the patent system a bit faster. No, I think Neelam's very correct and we've tried to create a very dynamic patent regime and actually in the last four years, the Indian patent system has evolved to be one of the best. We register a patent exactly in the, or probably lesser time than what USA and Japan does now. Both the patent and the trademark regime has greatly evolved but I'm willing to sit with you and if you can guide us on how what more we need to do we'll work in partnership with you on that. But we are. All right, Mejali, we are here. Thank you. A very quick question. We talked about startups going global. You know, if you look at a lot of the financial investments made in startups, they're by global investors. The global investors need a piece of action in India. So that's what fuels startups growing in India. They're not very excited about Indian companies going global really as yet. So that's a little bit. So like even as we've grown in India, but when we look at investors, they want us to kind of grab and keep growing in India. So what's going to fuel these startups from growing? The metrics are great as you pointed out, but who's going to fuel this expansion? All right, one last question slash comment. Megan Fallone who runs and founded an international hybrid social enterprise who is a Schwab Foundation awardee as well. We have now operations in a hundred countries and that is a manufacturing base in rural India that has fueled that. And from what I can hear, there's a lot of conversation about the workforce that needs to be here to support the kind of growth we would all like to see. Unfortunately, the biggest challenge is mindset. Mindset of our workers, mindset of rural folks, mindset education and the skilling that needs to happen on a human level. And if we continue to just talk about skilling as a techno solution and we don't deal with the development of human beings and their capacities at the same or I would argue at an even more accelerated rate, we're going to find ourselves unable to fuel the growth engine that we'd like to see. And I think that's very much where we are right now. All right, I think we are out of time on this session, but maybe Mr. Gandhi, want to just respond to the final thing on skilling? No, I just wanted to respond to Vaishali as well. You know, the sector in which she's excelled is renewable energy and there, there of course investors look at India as a very large market and India set up a very vast target, 175 gigawatt, which has now gone up to 450 gigawatt. So we'll truly be driving the ecosystem as far as renewable is concerned, as far as storage is concerned, as far as battery manufacturing is concerned, as far as electric vehicles are concerned. All this will be driven by us very vigorously in India. But there are a whole lot of startups which a whole lot of investors from abroad who are looking at taking Indian companies abroad. I mean, if you look at Ola, if you look at Oyo, they've all gone into UK, Australia, China, all these countries. These are young Indian startups which have gone and penetrated abroad as well. And these are all being driven by investors from abroad and growing 5X, 10X at that speed. So I think it'll happen both the ways and on the skill, I'd entirely agree that there is a lot of focus right now on skilling. A huge amount of work has been done, but it's not merely the skill, but also the change of mindset which is required. And it's a very important point that is being made. All right, thank you all so much. We are out of time, but it's really been illuminating and lots of interesting ideas on how to get to that fight. Thank you.