By IANS,
Mumbai : Hailing the UPA government’s decision to allow FDI in retail as the right move, the housing developer community Thursday called for accelerating the economic reforms process by covering the realty sector too.
“India is the world’s second largest retail market and the re-launch of the reforms process with the FDI in the sector will definitely help revive the sluggish economy and generate employment,” said Paras Gundecha, president of Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry and Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (MCHI-CREDAI).
He said the retail sector has established itself as the sunrise industry and with the FDI it will get a tremendous boost leading to establishment of new chains providing newer outlets for farmers, traders and the industry as a whole.
“We appeal to all sections to support this policy decision and help revive the economy without any more loss of time,” he said.
Gundecha, however, stressed that while allowing FDI in multi-brand retail, the government should adopt a balanced approach on it and protect the interests of small retailers who are self-employed.
Stating that rapid urbanization is the reality of the day, Gundecha said the real estate industry looks forward to tapping the vast opportunities in housing, retail and office segments.
“This is where the realty reforms come into picture as the retail chains will need huge complexes. For long, the growth of real estate industry has been thwarted by limitations of land availability, delays in approvals, expensive and almost prohibitive funding and ever increasing rise in costs inputs like cement, steel, sand and even labour,” he said.
Gundecha offered to open the process of dialogue with the government and its various agencies to work on realty reforms.