By IANS,
New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the two-day national conference and annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Wednesday.
Around 1,500 industrialists from across the country will attend the meeting. The theme for this year’s deliberations is “India tomorrow: Imperatives of growth, security and governance”.
“Manmohan Singh, Honourable Prime Minister of India, will inaugurate the national conference. The theme has been designed keeping in mind the need for focusing on issues where industry can play a greater role in nation building and creating an enabling business environment,” said CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee.
Issues like food security and industrialisation are the major items on the agenda of deliberations.
Commerce Minister Anand Sharma would share his perspectives on industrialisation, while Communications Minister Kapil Sibal would deliberate on the challenges of governance, CII said.
Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas would lead the discussions on the country’s food security, it added.
According to CII, a special plenary session will kick off deliberations on the second day with the Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
Other invitees include Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Planning Commission member Arun Maira, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh.
Corporate leaders slated to participate include Bharti Enterprises chief executive officer Sunil Bharti Mittal, Bajaj Group chairman Rahul Bajaj, TVS CMD Venu Srinivasan, Wipro chairman Azim Premji, Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Godrej Group chairman Adi Godrej.
The CII conference comes in the backdrop of the country’s growth rate slowing down to almost a four-year low of 4.5 percent during the October to December quarter of the current financial year, as compared to 6 percent during the same period of last year.