"IT'S TIME INDUSTRY FOCUSED MORE ON R&D"

Forbes Marshall Co-chairperson & CII’s former president Naushad Forbes authored The Struggle and the Promise: Restoring India’s Potential during the Covid-19 pandemic.

As the book completed one year of its launch recently, Forbes spoke to BW Businessworld about the distance India has travelled since the pandemic, the possibilities and the challenges ahead. He argues that the Indian economy is in a good shape, but there remain long-term concerns. Excerpts

On India’s Post-pandemic Recovery

When I wrote the book, we were in the midst of the pandemic. The economy had been seriously affected. We needed to restore our potential.

As things have normalised, as we bounce back, we’ve seen a recovery in employment, particularly of the more informal sector. The pandemic really affected travel, tourism, retail.

(Today), every flight is full. You see it in hotel occupancy, and you see it in retail. So I think all of that is very promising in restoring our potential.

Now, I think the longer term issues are still issues that we need to address. Getting a good employment engine underway, for instance…It was something I spent a lot of time on in the book. That issue remains to be addressed.

Growing manufacturing employment remains a high potential area, growing tourism potential (is again) a huge potential area for us.