Indian market can soothe woes, Nath tells global firms

Davos, Jan 29 (PTI) Global manufacturers can lessen
their pain arising out of recession in major markets by
setting up production facilities in India, which still offers
a competitive environment, Indian Commerce and Industry
Minister Kamal Nath said Thursday.

"The financial situation has eased somewhat and
liquidity is accessible in the domestic market.

"India is still a low-cost high-quality competitive
manufacturing environment. With falling shipping rates, it may
be more cost-effective to set up production facilities there,"
Nath said at a breakfast meeting of the Boston Consulting
Group at the World Economic Forum here.

He said India would recover faster than the rest of the
world from the global downturn. For example, after the
industrial decline in October 2008, the November 2008 figure
was positive at 2.4 per cent, Nath said, adding India's
economic growth would be in the range of 7 to 8 per cent in
the current fiscal ending March 2009.

The country's GDP growth was "fairly robust" at 7.8 per
cent in the first half of the fiscal. Nath said the government
and the Reserve Bank of India have announced fiscal measures
involving five billion dollars to mitigate the effects of the
global economic crisis on the country's economy.

The RBI has injected close to Rs 4,00,000 crore since
mid-September to improve liquidity in the system by taking
steps that included reduction in the cash reserve ratio and
lowering key policy rates. PTI IND
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