India attracts $38 bn FDI despite pandemic
Niti Aayog has pushed limits in innovation, says Kant
NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant
Hyderabad: India attracted $38 billion inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) despite the world reeling under Covid-19 pandemic, said NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
He said that Niti Aayog has taken up various measures to attract FDI and has pushed limits in innovation. India is becoming an innovation-driven economy by removing regulatory barriers, he said, at a session titled 'Transformation of India with a focus on entrepreneur ecosystem' at TiE Global Summit.
Stating India has grown as a technology country, he pointed out the country has world's second-largest start-up ecosystem, and spoke about various fronts on which the government is working to leverage technology for the benefit of India's 1.3 billion population.
Kant said that India can build a number of tech products as it has skilled manpower and unique problems.
"The post Covid-19 era will be a world of technology, he said. India can be a tech garage for the world," he said.
On data culture, data economy and artificial intelligence competence, Kant said that it is an evolving and fast-changing digital landscape. Though data privacy has been in the limelight, India needs data protection and data empowerment too, he added.
He observed that India is data-rich but it has to be data-intelligent and find solutions to problems. He believes Artificial Intelligence can help add up to $957 billion to the Indian economy by 2035.
Answering a question on women entrepreneurship, Kant said that the next big disruption in India will be led by women entrepreneurs. To transform India, we need to give a huge fillip to women entrepreneurship, he said.
