South Asia Session World Economic Forum At Davos: Highlights

Davos: A panel of leaders are talking about South Asia at the World Economic Forum 2016 at Davos. Here are highlights of the session:

Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickramsinghe

• We are restructuring our economy
• We have got a Free Trade Agreement with Pakistan, India, Singapore and China
• We are focusing on Skills, PPP to train for jobs
• In private sector all are complaining that the biggest constraint will be skills.
• We are looking at social inclusion for private sector to come in.
• We cannot be a low wage economy any more.
• Education, healthcare, Housing - we have a Million Jobs Programme

Chanda Kochhar, CEO, ICICI Bank

• Both job creation and skill development crucial.
• 40 per cent of population in India less than 20 years.
• 10 million people added every year to age group.
• We were growing on the back of services sector.
• We are promoting manufacturing now through Make in India
• In terms of creating jobs, we are shifting focus
• In terms of skill, we have a huge gap to meet
• The entire India is working towards Skill India
• Looking at huge amount of PPP
• Target is to skillfully train about 400 million by 2020

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

• Government is pumping more money into SMEs
• Write easy loan to applicants
• 50 per cent are females among these
• Focusing its energies on this particular thing
• We want young people and SMEs to form a part of the major industry that will produce goods for export and Pakistani markets