India must become an engine of global growth, says Indra Nooyi

India must become an engine of global growth. That’s what the chairperson and CEO

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of Pepsico Indra Nooyi said adding that India’s survival is important for the concept of democracy to survive in the world. She said India was a major player in the world and would continue to be in the next few decades.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit, Nooyi said the United States had been the engine of world growth, and everyone should hope for the sake of their economies that the economic slowdown is shortlived. “Even if the recovery is a series of Ws, that’s recovery,” said hoping that it would not an ‘L shaped’ or prolonged recovery.

She said her company was ready for any kind of scenarios in the world, whether its a sharp growth or downturn, though at the press conference the presenters refused to take questions on their particular companies, only what would be discussed at the sessions.

Most of the others took note of India’s growth at a time when the world was passing through a recession. William Green chairman and CEO of Accenture said there were lessons for the developed world to learn on how India had managed to evade the worst effects of the global slowdown. Calling it a ‘defining moment’ in world history when the developed world was coming out of the worst downturn, Green said there was a growing and wide recognition of India as a potential world power.

Carlos Ghosn chairman and CEO of Renault and Nissan Motors said that India had done very well for itself in the automobile sector and its production of cars will move up from two million a year to six million in a few years, but that would crucially depend on the infrastructure. “Whether infrastructure will be a facilitator or a bottleneck,” would depend on decisions taken by the government.

He said the United States was yet to come out of the recession and was unlikely to do so even in 2010. Europe and Japan would take even longer, he said adding that what he had seen about India had amazed him. “Even during the slowdown, exports of automobiles did not go down,” he said.

The growth in domestic demand in India, Ghosn said, had been helped by “frugal engineering, affordable product and just-in-time practices. He lauded the resilience and potential of the country but emphasised that much of the future growth would raise a lot of questions on infrastructure. “I am not blaming anyone, but to know how to get over the problem and what is being done about it.”

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of World Economic Forum said in the last 25 years what had changed was that India had become a brand, and a precious one at that. Earlier, it was difficult to sell India. “Today it sells, itself,” he said.