J. R. D. Tata Keynote by Sabavala S. A. & R. M. Lala

Author:Sabavala, S. A. & R. M. Lala [Sabavala, S. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788129104953
Published: 2015-02-20T18:30:00+00:00

Attracting Investment

The Tata Iron and Steel Co. Ltd, Chairman's Statement, September 18, 1958.

Never before has it been more necessary for us to be practical and realistic in our approach to economic problems and, in the process, to be willing to shed some of the prejudices and dogmas which have so heavily coloured our thinking in the past.

The basic ingredients of further economic growth should be clear by now. First, it is imperative that we become self-sufficient in food. Second, that we generate a sufficient annual surplus in our total balance of payments to pay for essential imports and to service our foreign debt.

Any further major expansion of our economy thereafter, particularly in the industrial field, will depend mainly on our ability to ensure a continuous flow of fresh capital. Except for such success as we may achieve in bringing into use some of the considerable hidden wealth in our country, the amount of our annual savings large as they are in percentage terms will clearly not be adequate to finance development of the magnitude, and at the rate, required. It must be supplemented by investments and loans from abroad.

One of our main tasks, therefore, will be to induce foreigners and our own people living abroad to invest in productive enterprise in India. This cannot be achieved unless we realise that capital flows most readily in directions where safety and opportunities of a good return and appreciation are greatest. If Puerto Rico has made such astounding progress in the last ten years and if Canada and other countries in the American Continent can attract all the capital and all the constructive enterprise they need, it is for the simple and obvious reason, constantly ignored or misunderstood in our own country, that it is made welcome and allowed both a safe harbour and an attractive return.

If our Government and our Parliament, were to let it be known that India was a land of opportunity for constructive and honest enterprise, where those who risked their savings or their surplus capital could reap a fair reward, we would see such a flow of capital from within and from abroad and such an upsurge of economic activity as would transform our land and our people's way of life in a few decades.

The surest way, on the other hand, to drive Indian capital out of sight and to discourage foreign investment is to continue with those elements in our economic philosophy and policies which have done so much in the last ten years or so to inhibit or penalise enterprise and initiative. I would mention, in particular, the excessively complex and rigid controls imposed on industry under various enactments, the crushing burden of individual and corporate taxes, import and excise duties and other imposts, often of a discriminatory character, which we choose to call an integrated system of taxation but which in fact merely saps the will to work and the willingness to take risks all added to an ideological attitude of hostility and mistrust towards private enterprise.

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