Doing Business In India Has Never Been Zero Sum Game, HUL CEO, Sanjiv Mehta
It is relatively difficult for rivals to come on a stage and share it for a common perspective and finally find themselves in a ring of fire. Similar was the situation when World food India was exploring the potential of India as the preferred investment destination. CEO of Niti Ayog Amitabh Kant was chairing the session in the presence of Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley and minister of food processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal.
During the panel discussion, Amitabh Kant asked almost every person on the panel about questions that were important for the investors to understand India’s importance as a preferred investment destination. Amitabh asked ITC chairman that how his mature and old firm is doing on the field of reducing wastages that comes from post-harvest technological gap and mismanagement. Sanjiv Puri replied to him and said that we have connectivity with more than 40 thousand villages via their e-chaupals. This along with certain areas of irrigation management thereby supporting the vision of doubling the farmers’ income by PM.
Amitabh asked Aacharya Balkrishna about the rise of Patanjali food as a business empire. Balkrishna responded that ‘We at Patanjali started our business with Amla Juice when few farmers came to Ramdev ji asking for some help. It was never the Patanjali’s approach to go for business, we grew due to our acceptance in market’.
There was a complete silence at the venue when Amitabh asked the Hindustan Unilever CEO, Sanjiv Mehta, about his business share being seriously taken by Patanjali Foods, to which Mehta responded as ‘business in India has never been a zero-sum game for an industry’ and government should focus on the food safety standard for a better response and sustainable market. BW Businessworld has asked Balkrishna to respond to this comment from Mehta, Balkrishna responded that ’Food safety is really very important for all the Indian groups to present our real traditional image to world’.
It was a huge amount of 35,000 crore food market which Lulu International Hypermarket carries in the middle east. It is a part of Lulu’s multibillion-dollar turnover when Yusuf Ali the Chairman of Lulu Group told this to Amitabh. Ali had also shown interest that he will be looking to expand the investment in India, where he was restricted to only some parts of South India.
India needs to be more hygiene cautious said Irwin Simon, the President of Hain Celestial. Irwin said that apart from a huge existing potential in the market of India. Sustainability remains to be the issue that India has to focus upon said Irwin.
It was a positive remark came from the side of Pieter Boone the CEO of Metro Cash & Carry when he said that we will provide loans to Kirana store and will train them to raise their business standards. While Kim Fausing, CEO of Danfoss has asserted that it has actually increased the appetite of investors by the ease of doing business in India and people like me will be feeling India as a more suitable place to invest.
