Chairman of Tata Sons N Chandrasekaran has said India needs to make investments in education, healthcare and skill development with a focus on technology to make the 2020s the “decade of India”. Speaking at FICCI’s 93rd annual general meeting, Chandrasekaran said: “2020 belongs to India, and we need a new focus on talent, we need to enable data and bandwidth, and we need to be a part of the new regulatory standards emerging in India”.

He explained the reason behind the success of Asian economies such as Japan and South Korea. When people focus on the success of these countries, they say the reason behind this was their export-led manufacturing prowess. However, the manufacturing prowess of these countries was an outcome of investments in education, skill development and health. He said that India should also focus on these specific areas.”India’s strength is our talent pool,” he added.  

Chandrasekaran said that a few business trends that have emerged out of COVID-19 lockdowns are here to stay for a while.

“Models of working from home are still growing, making all companies rethink about the future of work…the reality of climate change is upon us in a telling way and the rush towards renewables is going to accelerate,” he added.

The Tata Group is leading the development of new platforms in areas such as tech manufacturing, future mobility and renewable health. He said that Tata Group will also work alongside small and medium enterprises in order to unlock their potential for the Indian economy.

According to Chandrasekaran, the year 2020 marked the decoupling of the US and China as nations across the world started to de-risk their supply chain models. This has provided India with “limitless” opportunities, he said. On contraction of the economy in the third quarter, he said it was also smaller than expected and the GDP growth could accelerate over to 11% in 2022.

He also said while the rebound of Q3 looks spectacular, it is coming on the back of real loss of output. He also said that Indian businesses will need to not only recover but accelerate as well