We have a long way to go. The Chinese have taken a tremendous leap forward. Hong Kong will be a part of China in 1997. They will have Taiwan with them. And when that happens, with Macau already in the kitty, the total foreign exchange reserves of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau will be almost four times of Japan. We cannot reach that level in the foreseeable future.
What can we do to attract foreign investment in India?
If we do not have the infrastructure, foreign investors are not going to come in. Forget foreigners, even Indian industries are not willing to go into the backward areas because they feel there is no infrastructure available.
Secondly, we have to be more competitive because we are trying to attract foreign investment as one of the competitors, one of the bidders. There are many other Asian nations -- like our neighbours, China and Pakistan, for example -- who are aiming for a piece of the same pie.
How does the foreign investor perceive India?
It is not a very positive perception. We need a drastic and complete change of image.
What is the Shiv Sena's policy on this matter?
It would be premature for me to say anything on this because I want to really study the policy well; I am just getting into this. There are so many areas like education, railways, primary health, health care that need to be overhauled. It will not happen overnight; there are other limitations that have to be taken into consideration. But, as such, we have to start doing it.
What is your opinion of the performance of the economy and the private sector in the last year?
The corporate sector has been doing extremely well. Paradoxically, the economy is doing extremely badly. This situation needs to be corrected -- the corporate sector will either have to start doing badly or the economy will have to start doing well so that they complement each other. Hopefully, this will be part of the agenda of the new government.
Which sectors do you think need more attention and what are the policies that they need?
We will have to get the private sector really involved in developing infrastructure. The private sectors, at present, feel that this is not their responsibility. We'll have to come out with a good, incentive-rich package. Investment in infrastructure has to be sold to them as a good business proposition.
We could, may be, incentivise them by stating that those private sectors who develop infrastructure in a particular area can then do their business in that area as a sort of a monopoly right for a certain period of time. Until then, there will not be much private investment in infrastructure development.
Is the Indian public ready to adopt the harsh measures that are necessary to rejuvenate the Indian economy?
What is important is that we should not give the people what they want, we should give to the people what they need.
Do you think our politicians have the guts to do that?
That is up to the party. But this is something we need to do. It has to become a national issue. Why do we hedge on thorny issues? Why is it that no party is talking about population control any more? Why are we not talking about issues that could affect the economic development of the country?
Is it because political parties are ultimately only interested in winning the next elections?
That is the past. The future is subject to change. It has to be different; it has to change.