Business leaders worried over interest-rate hit industrial slowdown turned their meeting on Monday with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee into an opportunity to drive home a simple message: If we have to catch up with China, things must change.
“Ratan Tata asked the minister to give more incentives to India Inc if the domestic industry is expected to perform the way the Chinese are performing,” a senior government official present at the meeting said.
Business leaders turned the occasion into something like a pre-budget meeting, seeking incentives to match India’s neighbour, the world’s fastest growing economy which is also hit by inflation.
A Tata spokesman offered no comments on the confidential meeting.
The government official said the industrialists assured minister they would steer through the current uncertainty, but Tata wanted the minister to ensure that the spread of negative sentiments is arrested.
The interest rates, which have been raised 11 times in 16 months, are a big burden.