Young Indians will lead the next wave of change to make India a truly industrialised nation in the next 10 to 15 years, says a Foreign Direct Investor in South Asia's largest economy.
"I have no doubts that the next biggest change will be brought about by the country's younger generation, putting India in the rightful place as an industrialised country by 2025," Singapore businessman Sat Pal Khattar said.
Khattar, who was awarded the Padma Shri by India this year, is one of the leading Singaporean businessmen, with a wide range of investments in the banking and hotel sectors, information technology companies and agri-businesses.
"We have seen dramatic change in the Indian business environment over the last two decades, but India needs to give more freedom to the business sector to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and become a world-class economy," said Khattar, who has been investing in India since the early 1990s.
"India should not miss the opportunities to further grow its economy. I am confident that the young Indians, being the next power players in the economic and political environment, will not let go this opportunity to turn India into the next powerhouse," he said.
India is still short of having a world-class infrastructure and would have to give priority to developing the real estate sector, especially housing for the lower- and middle-income groups, observed Khattar, chairman of his own investment company Khattar Holdings Pte Ltd in Singapore.
"Giving a roof to every citizen is any government's first priority in developing the country and India needs to do that immediately," said Mr Khattar, who has seen the massive transformation of Singapore economy from the Third World to the First World.
He cited Singapore's public housing scheme, housing 85 per cent of the population, saying this was the city state's government first priority in the early days of economic development.
The lawyer turned businessman has the legal know-how and corporate investment expertise and is today a global investor with specific focus on India.
Having come through the 1990s challenges of getting project approvals and operational start-ups, Khattar has ambitious expansion plans in India.
"We are looking at every business opportunity in India," he said, adding that future projects include media and advertising, software skill and human capital development and participation in ongoing business to lend financial and international market strength.
Khattar Holdings is expanding its majority-own Pagro Foods Ltd in Punjab. It introduced Swedish technology and cold storage expertise for the dry-freezing of green peas.
"We are expanding the Pagro lines to dry-freeze other vegetables and expand our distribution network," he disclosed. Chandigarh-based Pagro Foods would also see a significant increase in exports, which currently stand at about 20 per cent, said Khattar, whose family moved to Singapore from Bhera in India after the India-Pakistan separation.
Khattar began investing in India with a minority stake in HDFC Bank, then moved on to help set up a five-star hotel, the Radisson, near Indira Gandhi International Airport, in New Delhi, followed by another multi-million dollar mixed flatted factory and residential development in the Indian capital.
These were some of the challenging projects in the 1990s when India was transforming its regulatory processes for FDIs.
"We waited for one year to get a formal approval to start operating our completed, fully-furnished and staffed Radisson Hotel, which was very painful," he recalled.
Khattar-led investment in the factory-cum-residential investment in New Delhi has not made much progress since the 1990s.
"We have been waiting to complete the project for the past 15 years," said Khattar, the chairman of GuoccoLand Ltd, a Singapore-listed company with a wide range of real-estate properties in China and South-East Asia.
The New Delhi project is GuoccoLand's first project in India.
"But we believe in the Indian market for good and the potential of the next generation in industrialising India, so we are staying focus on India," said the 69-year old Khattar, a Singapore corporate personality, who has been widely commended for his contributions to the legal sector, businesses and charities in the city state.
