‘India needs to ramp up bilateral relations for trade, investment’

India can be the engine of global growth: Sitharaman

It is for us to ramp up our bilateral relations with many countries, not just for trade, not just for investment, but also for strategic relations

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasized India's potential to lead the global technology landscape, highlighting the country's ability to implement advancements at a population scale. 

Speaking at the BS Manthan on Thursday, she asserted that India must prioritize investment in technology and talent to secure its position at the forefront of global economic growth. "In matters of technology, India can be a leader in many aspects as we do it on a population scale. India can lend a hand to global tech group on this. Global technology group with India's steam can play a big difference," Sitharaman said. "India has to prioritise investing in technology. India can play talent to its advantage, which is required for technology going. India can be the engine of global growth" she added.

Sitharaman said India needs to ramp up its bilateral relations for trade and investment, as the world is witnessing a churn, and bilateralism seems to be the new catalyst tool. The Finance Minister said these are very interesting yet challenging times and the government is making all efforts to make India move up the ladder and be an engine of global growth.

"Bilateralism is now taking the top of the agenda... It is for us to ramp up our bilateral relations with many countries, not just for trade, not just for investment, but also for strategic relations. So multilateralism, sort of, out, I'm still saying with a qualifying word 'sort of out', but bilateralism is very much your only catalytic tool that you can use," she said.

Observing that multilateral institutions are increasingly fading away, she said, every attempt to revive them and energize them is not having the desired result. Sensing the movement toward a new world, India has initiated bilateral trade talks with many nations including the UK and is planning a bilateral trade agreement with the US.