Prime Minister Narendra Modi called bankers, economists and billionaires to his residence on Tuesday to brainstorm on how India can manage the current turbulence in global markets, including opportunities for it in China's market and growth crises.
Here are the highlights:
At the three-hour meeting, the Prime Minister spoke last. He asked India Inc to "be bold, take risks and increase investments," said Sumit Mazumder, president of the Industry body CII.
The Prime Minister "wants animal spirits of Industry revived. They have been a bit subdued," said Rana Kapoor, who heads another major industry chamber, Assocham, which told the PM at the meeting that policymakers needed to act fast to "bullet proof" India from global jitters.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said 27 participants spoke at the meeting. India is relatively untouched from global crisis, except the transient impact on markets, Mr Jaitley said.
India's economic fundamentals reasonably strong and the participants suggested steps for further strengthening of the Indian economy, Mr Jaitley added.
Many business leaders present called for a deep cut in interest rates to help them take risks and scale up investment. "Cost of capital is too high...and many of us raised the issue of interest rate," industry body Ficci's president Jyotsna Suri said.
The meeting was attended by tycoons like India's richest man Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, Sunil Mittal of Bharti Enterprises and Kumar Mangalam Birla of Aditya Birla Group. Leading bankers like Arundhati Bhattacharya of State Bank of India and Chanda Kochhar of ICICI Bank were also present.
Also, at the meeting were top ministers, Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian who made a brief presentation on why impact of the global turmoil would be far lesser on Indian economy.
Investors and corporates have been worried about the slow pace of reforms and annual growth slowing to 7 per cent in the June quarter.
The government predicts India's economy will grow at 8 per cent or more in 2015/16, prodded by government spending. Yet private investment has been slow to pick up, with banks and businesses hobbled by bad debts and high lending rates.
This was the PM's second meeting with India Inc in two months. It was held also as the US is seen as preparing to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade, which could trigger capital outflows from emerging markets like India.
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