India’s private sectors must boost capital expenditure to become $5 trillion economy : Amitabh Kant

NEW DELHI : India’s G20 Sherpa and several other officials and industrialists said on Friday that India’s private sector should step up to the plate and boost capital expenditure to enable the country to grow faster.

India’s private sector should step up to the plate and boost capital expenditure to enable the country to grow faster, top industrialists and government officials said at the star-studded Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence 2023 on Friday. India should leverage the unique demographic dividend it enjoys as it becomes the world’s most-populous nation, overtaking China.

Business leaders also called for bringing more women into the workforce. They expect investments in R&D pick up pace as the world’s fastest-growing major economy major strives to meet its immediate goal of becoming a USD 5 trillion economy.

“India needs to grow at minimum 8% per annum over a long period of time. If you have to become a $5 trillion and subsequently a $10 trillion economy and raise the per capita income of Indians… I think the animal spirits of the private sector must rise up to the occasion now,” said NITI Aayog’s CEO, Amitabh Kant. 

In the past few years, only three-four large private sector groups have taken the risk to make substantial investments, he said.

Kotak Mahindra Bank CEO Uday Kotak assured Kant that the private sector will boost capex. 

“Give them time and do not suggest an increase of taxation please,” Kotak said.