Leading non-resident Indian industrialist Lord Swraj Paul on Monday said India should stop craving for foreign investments for economic growth as the Indian economy has much more potential and it does not require outside help.
"It always pains me to see that there is a feeling in India that development can only take place with foreign investments. India is far more richer and it can contribute a lot to the world economy," said Lord Paul, who is in Kolkata in connection with the India-United Kingdom round table meet as its co-chairman.
Elaborating his point, Lord Paul said the country has lot of potential in areas like software, manufacturing, fashion and even Bollywood films.
"The Indians and Indian products are making waves in these areas all across the world and you don't really have to depend on the foreign investments for economic progress," Lord Paul, who heads the London based Caparo Group said.
He said Britain is proud of its bilateral partnership with India specially in the areas of trade and business and during the just concluded round table meet one of the main agenda was how to further enhance this partnership.
"The India-UK bilateral trade has already touched the 5 billion pound mark with UK emerging as India's third largest trading partner after US and Belgium and we have set a target of 10 billion pound by 2007."
He said one of the recent phenomena was that more and more Indian companies are investing in UK and at the last count there were 465 Indian companies investing in UK economy, a fact which the round table felt should be given greater publicity.
Lord Paul said that the round table, which consists of around 30 people from both countries drawn from various sections of society, was appreciative of a much better business scenario in India after the removal of barriers and improvement of infrastructure.
"The FDI in India now enjoyed rapid returns and this fact needs to be highlighted," he said.
He acknowledged that there are "concerns" in Britain about outsourcing from India as it leads to job loss in UK. But, the "British government has already clarified that it is a normal process and we encourage it," said the country's business ambassador to India.
The round table, which gives its recommendations to the two prime ministers for follow-up action, also felt that the job created by Indian investments in UK should be properly publicised.
The British Deputy High Commissioner Melville Guest, who was also present with Lord Paul, pointed out that the jobs created due to Indian investments in UK almost compensates the job loss due to outsourcing.
The issue of terrorism was a main agenda at the round table which recommended that India and UK should intensify their bilateral co-operation in the struggle against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, he said.
"It (terrorism) is a very important issue for us. Britian is fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland for 70 years. Our Prime Minsiter Tony Blair spends more time in combating terrorism and hence we are very sensitive towards that," Lord Paul said.
