The Hindu Business Line : Call for sustainable corporate growth

COMPETITION is the prime mover for growth and sustainable competitiveness is the precursor to sustainable growth, said Minister of State for Company Affairs, Mr Prem Chand Gupta on Tuesday. "If an economy cannot remain competitive on sustainable basis it cannot expect sustainable growth, as business and investment will start moving to other economies which are more competitive," the Minister said.

Mr Gupta was speaking at the CEOs Forum on Leadership for Sustainable Competitiveness organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Referring to the rapid economic strides made by the country, Mr Gupta mentioned that a recent NASSCOM-McKinsey report had stated that Indian IT exports alone would cross $ 60 billion by 2010.

He said that according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2005-06, India had moved up five positions in the ranking. But there were several speed-breakers in this story — infrastructure was not good enough, transport network needed improvement, and illiteracy, poor health and unemployment were some of the other factors that needed attention, he stated.

CII President and Chairman of ITC Ltd, Mr Y.C. Deveshwar said in his address that the challenge was to secure the desired quality and pace of development, not only economically but also in social and environment objectives.

He said, "As the nation embarks on an ambitious journey of economic growth, this is also the right time to engage with the broader scope of growth — namely sustainable development. The need of the hour is for the Indian industry to play a proactive role towards achieving sustainable growth."

Mr Deveshwar said corporates had a special responsibility to ensure that no deferred burden was placed on the coming generations.

At the forum, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the chamber and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Netherlands to facilitate transfer of knowledge on Sustainability Reporting and promote the adoption and implementation of GRI guidelines.