PM to open India Economic Summit on Sunday

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the three-day India Economic Summit on Sunday, being held here in the backdrop of the global financial crisis."The programme for this year's Summit will lead to concrete recommendations for addressing key challenges such as skill development, financial empowerment of the poor and development of female talent," Director and Head of Asia at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Sushtant Palakurthi Rao told reporters here.Cabinet Ministers Pranab Mukherjee, Anand Sharma, Murli Deora, P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Kamal Nath, and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia are scheduled to address the Summit. Besides, business leaders Chanda Kochhar (ICICI), Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo-USA), Shumeet Banerji (Booz and Company-UK), Carlos Ghosn (Renault-France, William D Green (Accenture-USA) and Baba N Kalyani (Bharat Forge) will participate in the event.Rao further added India with its large population of youth could become a hub for manufacturing and technological innovations.The WEF will be celebrating 25 years of its engagement with India at the annual Economic Summit. Meanwhile, industry body CII and global consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers released the the Global Competitive Index (GCI).In the index featuring 133 countries, India ranked 49th as a result of mixed performance across 12 categories. India was on the 50th position in the previous edition of the GCI. The country displays competitive strengths in the areas of business sophistication, innovation and financial market sophistication, the report added."While the India economy registered a 6.7 growth outshining the developed economies and many emerging economies during the year of global economic and financial crisis, the need for further reforms and drive to be a globally competitive economy cannot be under-emphasises," CII Director General Chandrajit Banjerjee said.