Mumbai: Despite infrastructure being a key challenge in India’s growth story, Indian businesses should continue to focus on the domestic market to achieve a sustainable long term growth, top executives said on Tuesday.
At an event hosted by global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to celebrate 25 years of its presence in India, top company executives including N. Chandrasekaran, executive chairman, Tata Sons Ltd, and Uday Kotak, managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd spoke on India’s growth in the last 25 years and where the country stands vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
“India is going to be the greatest market of all of our lifetime. This is not saying we should not focus on international markets. We will evaluate every international opportunity but India is a happening place and it is the place to be. There is tremendous opportunity and we will deploy capital in India,” said Chandrasekaran.
Dominic Barton, managing partner of McKinsey & Co., said success and growth of Indian companies “should not necessarily be defined by being global”.
Whether in infrastructure, consumer goods or finances, India provides a huge opportunity for growth considering its growing income as well as the size of the demographic, he said.
Kotak said India needs to grow its GDP at about 8% per year for the next 20 years to reach the level of China. “India has come a long a way but the road is even more interesting than the challenge. In the last 20 years, India has grown at about 5% and our per capita GDP is at about $1,800. China is about five times our size.”
Rajnish Kumar, chairman, State Bank of India said infrastructure continues to pose a huge challenge and human capital needs to be skilled to support the kind of growth target the country has.