By IRNA,
New Delhi : India has the intellectual capacity, strength and ability to fuel the next industrial revolution, said the Maldives president.
“Countries in Asia need India’s success and we all should partner with India in its efforts to take on global challenges,” said Mohamed Nasheed Friday in Chennai, delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session of The Partnership Summit 2010 – “Global Partnerships: Meeting Challenges”, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the Government of India .
He added that Indian companies are making big contribution to the development of Maldives economy by investing especially in its tourism, renewable energy, infrastructure and educational sector.
Nasheed said the world is in the brink of the next industrial revolution – the one based on renewable energy. “ India is already in the forefront of developing renewable energy.
However, it should evolve strategies to protect itself from the fluctuating oil prices, as countries that do not understand renewable energy, will not be the leaders of the bold, brave new future.”
Meanwhile, reading out the special address of Dato Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mr Dato Mystapa Bin Mohamed, Minister of International Trade and Industry, Malaysia, said that there is a huge potential for increasing trade and investment ties between Malaysia and India. “The global trade in goods and services will begin to grow as countries recover from the financial crisis.
Malaysia and India will benefit from this,” he said and added that Malaysia is committed to elevating itself to a high-income, high-value and knowledge-driven economy.
In his special address, Mr Anand Sharma, Chairman, The Partnership Summit 2010 and Minister of Commerce and Industry, emphasized that the global trade regime should also reflect the aspirations of people living in developing nations. “There should be rules-based, fair, equitable multilateral trade agreements that reflect the legitimate aspirations of development of poor and vulnerable economies,” he said and added that the developing countries should re-energise the Doha round and the next round of WTO talks should be dedicated to development. The global organizations and forums such as UN, World Bank, IMF, etc should reflect and represent the world including countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The minister said that there is a need for more cooperation at regional level. “Economic integration among regions is very important.
America has done it, Europe has done it,” he said and reiterated that India is trying to strengthen the regional, economic cooperation among regions of South Asia and Asia. “We are entering into Free Trade Agreements with ASEAN countries and signing agreements related to services and investment with European Union, Japan, and regional groupings such as SACU and MERCOSUR in Africa and Latin America , because we believe that there must be robust integration and the growth have to be inclusive.”
The minister referred to India ’s development process as a business opportunity for partner countries. He pointed out that India is spending $ 550 billion in its current Five Year Plan on infrastructure development. Quoting studies by international organizations, the minister said that India is further expected to spend 1.5 trillion in the ten years, after the current Five Year Plan period. Voicing a similar concern with that of his Malaysian counterpart, Mr. Sharma said that Globalisation should benefit all – no region, no section should feel that they are victims and not the beneficiaries of the sweeping changes. Wealth created should be redistributed – otherwise, it will become a zero-sum game. While we welcome Intellectual Property Regime, when it comes to tackling the challenges such as hunger, the intellectual of human kind should be used for finding solutions to masses and not for few,” he said.
Delivering his address Venu Srinivasan, President, CII, said that the year 2010 should mark the global countries set agenda for future and grapple with long term issues, post financial crisis, world is living in the shadow of climate change, food and energy security. He said that no country can be insular in its views and the global village has become a reality thanks to information technology, video conferencing. India has close economic ties with ASEAN and SAARC countries and shares common perspectives in democracy, foreign affairs, defence. He said that the economic centre of gravity is shifting to Asia – especially China and India . This will have greater ramifications for the world in food and energy security.