Saturday 04 / May / 2024
Muscat: With a population of 1.3 billion people, the way India has controlled the COVID-19 pandemic is truly appreciable.
Now, when the world has started using vaccine to get rid of coronavirus, question arises what should India do to promote itself and bring the economy back on tracks.
The biggest task before opening the door post-COVID era is to vaccinate each Indian citizen amidst the challenges viz. logistic, storage of vaccines at designated temperature, digital registration of beneficiaries and monitoring post vaccination health issues. We hope that India would be able to vaccinate its people effectively.
Now, India should start striving for economic growth again. PM Modi is already geared up for the same. During the pandemic the government provided stimulus packages which helped the Indian economy to come on recovery path in record time.
On August 15, 2021, India will enter into the 75th year of independence which would be the beginning of post-COVID era also. This will be the starting of year-long celebration. As a part of celebration, India will showcase its development, governance, technology reforms, progress and policy by expediting many ongoing infrastructure projects to be completed on or before August 15, 2022. This great dedication of Modi Government will help India to achieve 5 trillion-dollar economy by 2024-25 as targeted.
Despite numerous challenges during the pandemic, Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency of India has been declared winner of the 2020 United Nations Investment Promotion Award on December 7, 2020. During April 2020 to September 2020, India received FDI worth US$ 30 billion with 15% growth. This builds confidence that the Indian economy will bounce back. Also, this encourages that post-COVID India will continue to attract good amount of FDI considering the world’s fastest growing economy, largest youth population in the world, efforts towards National Infrastructure Pipeline [NIP] initiative, consistent improvement in ease of doing business ranking, from 142nd (2014) to 63rd (2019). According to the IMF, India will remain one of the fastest-growing economies in the world despite the pandemic. IMF projects a growth of 8.8% for India in 2021.
India will have to take many bold actions quickly as this is the appropriate time to convert this adverse economic situation into an opportunity. Encouraging manufacturing sector should be the key for growth. This sector should generate many more jobs. Government should support this sector by bringing more products under production-linked incentive schemes to bring down the cost of production. It should also introduce incentive scheme which promote manufacturing of Global Standard Products. India should speed up execution of NIP.
Businesses in India will have to develop and learn advanced complex technologies to increase the productivity and cost optimisation. Government should ensure appropriate flow of technology across the borders. Expanding base of education, encouraging research for competitiveness and keeping markets open are must for India in the long run. Also, for Imaginative economy, India must take advantage of its democratic principles, diversified thoughts and innovative ideas. All these efforts along with export - oriented policies will increase India’s global competitiveness and export.
Oman and India had been a strategic partner of each other for decades. Both are linked by geography, history and culture and share great amount of bilateral relationship in trade. During 2019-20, bilateral trade was US$ 5.93 billion which proves both countries contribute to each other in economic and social development. Both countries have certain potential areas to enhance bilateral trade considering proximity, connectivity and age-long relationship. Both governments should enhance bilateral dialogues to tap these untapped potentials and increase transparency for better business climate to investors, develop trade policies favourable to both and promote the use of International Standards at home to integrate companies into global value chains. Both countries should expedite the negotiation and conclude Free Trade Agreement at the earliest.
According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of Oman, 4,100 Indian businesses are present in Oman with an estimated investment of over US$ 7.5 billion. Oman also invests in India, some of these are Oman-India Joint Investment Fund, Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd. Oman should promote aggressively its natural beauty as “Film Tourism” by providing facilities like special visa, publishing a full guide and map of Oman with prominent shooting location etc. The appearance of a tourist place in a movie provides tourism opportunities. Outside the GCC, Oman has been receiving the highest number of tourists from India with persistent increase since 2011, from 163,451 [2011] to 436,000 [2019]. Oman is becoming favourite spot for Indian Destination Weddings. Oman has great potential of “Nature Based Tourism [NBT]”. Government should put efforts and direction to “Discover, Develop and Present to World” for promotion of NBT. Remittances from Indians residing in Oman is among the top 10 foreign sources of revenues for India.
Both countries have similar pluralistic society. Modi government strongly believes and encourages pluralism. Oman-India Friendship Association was established during the visit of V Muraleedharan, Minister of State for External Affairs of India. He said: “The historically close bilateral relations between Oman and India expanded into a vibrant, multi-level strategic partnership, which is based on shared values and mutual trust.” Strengthening relationship between both the countries and partnership in priority areas identified for Oman Vision 2040 is vital for comprehensive growth of Oman and India.
India’s bilateral trade with five other GCC countries was US$ 115 billion during 2019 – 20. Indian Government should frequently review bilateral relationship to enhance economic collaborations with these countries. These countries have tremendous economic potentials for India to explore and tap. All the GCC countries are striving for economic diversification and India can help them to achieve the same by providing its expertise and technical know-how which will strengthen the bilateral trade between these countries. Also, it will surge Indian investment in these countries and vice versa.
Indian economy is recovering faster than expected, according to global rating agency S&P. This is the appropriate time for the Modi government to take aggressive steps and push economic growth forward.
The writer CA. Sarweshwar Biyani is the Vice President – Finance and Accounts, SV Pittie Sohar Textiles (FZC) SAOC. Views expressed above are solely his own.
