Ernst & Young recently released a report that ranked India as the number one investment destination in the world based on a detailed survey it conducted polling some of the most influential decision makers in the world. The survey which was titled ‘Ready, set Grow’ considered the views of over 500 key decision makers in top multi-national companies from different sectors like I.T, automotive, life sciences, manufacturing, infrastructure and finance.
Over 32% of these business leaders ranked India as the number one country for investment during the next three years and ranked China, south east Asia and Brazil as other prominent places to get a good return on investment. The survey also revealed that 3 out of every 5 respondents were committed to investing into India during the next 12 months and 62% of those respondents were considering investing into the manufacturing sector that was targeting both domestic and international markets.
India’s prime minster Narendra Modi has placed a huge emphasis on the manufacturing sector and has been aggressively promoting a campaign known as ‘Make In India’ on all of his overseas trips. His government has successfully managed to attract a significant amount of foreign investment from a number of countries and also rolled out flexible policies encouraging foreign enterprises to enter India and collaborate with local enterprises.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant stated that India’s manufacturing industry was about to explode and one of the reasons why investors are eager to get involved and ‘Make in India. He said that while India has a long term goal of achieving a 9 to 10 percent growth each year for the next 30 years, the short term goal was to leverage the next three years to take India into the top 50 rankings based on World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business.
In a statement, Kant said
The Prime Minister has set us a challenge of taking India to the top 50 position on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business in the next three years. We will marginally improve (our ranking) this year… We will substantially improve next year but in the third year we will definitely reach top 50. We continue to attract investments across and it is important that India becomes a part of the global supply chain.
The government is also working on rolling out new policies that are a lot more flexible in inviting investors to invest in India and give them a number of tax breaks.
