WASHINGTON, Apr 11: India has seen phenomenal economic growth in the last 10 years, a top Indian-American venture capitalist and entrepreneur said, attributing it to steps taken by the country to reform rules and regulations and its focus on infrastructure.
Silicon Valley-based M R Rangaswami, the founder of Indiaspora, also noted that the “metrics are trending” in the right direction for India-US relationship.
“The 10-year journey is something to be looked at. When the prime minister (Narendra Modi) came on board (in 2014), you could see where the economy was to where the economy is now. You’ll see a leap in GDP growth. A leap in income and so on and so forth,” he told PTI in an interview.
The same thing can be said of the relationship between India and the US, he said and added that trade has more than doubled in the same time-frame.
“You see all the metrics are trending in the right direction for India and for the US-India relationship as well. I think its been on the right trajectory, right course, which I think will be appreciated,” he said.
Rangaswami said a lot of focus in the last 10 years has been on infrastructure, which, he described, as a differentiating factor.
“The number of roads being built, the number of railways being built, new rail coaches and engines. You look across the board, you see so much investment in infrastructure and ports, airports, the latest being the T2 terminal in Bengaluru, which is world class and is getting so much attention,” he said.
The right focus has been on infrastructure, and this will result in jobs, more communities being built, and India moving up, Rangaswami said. “You can see the maturing of both the prime minister’s thinking and the vision over the 10 years. These have increased and improved in so many ways,” the venture capitalist said.
“With (US) President Joe Biden coming on board and the bilateral relationship becoming so important, almost every two, three months there’s a minister from India coming here or there’s a cabinet secretary from here going to India. It’s just happening so often. It’s almost like there’s a direct flight, literally, from every city in the US to India and back. That’s actually a reality,” he said
Today, there are 17 direct flights from San Francisco to India. When Modi came here to San Jose, that’s when he announced the first flight to Delhi. Then it was three days a week, Rangaswami said.
“Right now, its 17 flights a week just from here. Now, they’ve announced they’ll go to Los Angeles. They’ll go to other cities. So, you’ll see this dramatic improvement in air traffic, direct flights, which I think will also build traffic, tourism, but also build the diaspora going back and forth to meet their relatives,” he said.
“I mean, it’s all trending again, infrastructure development. Getting more planes, privatising Air India so that now Tatas can get… Have ordered 500 new planes. All that is going to make a huge impact,” Rangaswami said
The diaspora, he said, has played an important role in further strengthening India-US relationship. “You’ve seen recently that the remittances of the diaspora from across the world to India is 110 billion. Out of that, 23 per cent is coming from the US,” he said.
“This money is not the typical money that goes from the Gulf to help their families in India. This money is for investment. People are buying apartments. People are buying stocks and shares. People are investing in companies in India. So, this is a different kind of remittance, not the traditional feed my family remittance, but invest in India remittance,” he said.
“From outside of India, we see that there are steps being taken to reform India’s rules and regulations in so many areas. That gives us a lot more hope, looking at the next step for India,” Rangaswami said.
The diaspora gave a lot of recommendations to the government. Some of those recommendations have been taken into account, he said and added that some still need to be done in terms of angel tax. “So, more needs to be done obviously you know there are a lot more reforms to be done in India and I think that that will happen in due course but it’s moving in the right direction and that’s what counts a lot,” Rangaswami said.
“If the prime minister is elected (for a third term), I’m sure he has a lot in mind. But I think strengthening the diaspora relationship with many more countries… The US-India is a good one. We see now India-Australia is a great relationship. India-UAE is a good one. So targeting all the rich diaspora countries for similar relationships. UK has to happen. That trade agreement has not happened yet. There’s also Canada where things are not as promising as the other countries,” he said.
Rangaswami suggested that the aim should be targeting the top 10 countries where there is Indian diaspora and making sure those relationships are similar to what has happened between India and US. (PTI)
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