Good evening ladies and gentlemen, what an absolute pleasure it is to be back here at the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. I think I've done about 20 of these, so it's great to be back in this room. CNBC TV18 has been very proud to be part of these Awards along with EY over the past two decades or so. You know, as I was walking up on stage, three entrepreneurs who should be adaptable and agile are telling me, 'Don't ask us anything out of syllabus.' So that's exactly what I am going to do this evening. But to pick up from where Rajiv Mantri left off, he was quoting Javed Akhtar, so let me go a step ahead and quote Rumi. Rumi said that we choose our joys and sorrows before we actually experience them. Let me extend that to entrepreneurship and say we choose our success and failures before we actually experience them as well. And these three gentlemen here on the stage with me have had their fair share of successes, but have also had some learning to do with the many tough decisions that they've had to encounter and take during the course of their careers. So without further ado, let me start. And Sajjan Jindal, I'm going to start by asking you. Lots of jokes being made about suits. Everyone perhaps has watched President Trump's address to Congress this morning. It's the longest address in US history at over one hour and 40 minutes, and there was plenty there in terms of trade tariffs and so on and so forth. You know, the Prime Minister speaking just 24 hours ago said it is time for Indian industry not to play spectator. Indian industry needs to rise to the occasion, needs to take up the challenge, needs to go out there and become a part of global supply chains. As you look at what's happening around us in the world today, Mr. Jindal, do you see this as an opportunity or as a threat to India?
No, I think Prime Minister Modi has already talked about it, that this is our time, and we have to go out there and be the part of supply chain. And I completely agree with it. Trump will come and go. There will be this Trump or another Trump. This will continue to happen. So we have two opportunities in front of us. One is to build this nation, India, which by itself is a huge marketplace, and we don't have to fear anything. We have to build it. We have to really put our best foot to build this nation and build it well. And we are very fortunate that we are at this time. We are here to build this country, and we are really doing it. Second is that we can really be a part of the global supply chain. Indian companies are very good at it. We have an extremely good cost structure. We have very good skilled manpower, and we are already a very good supply chain partner of the world industry. And we need to really expedite that and expand that. So I'm very clear and very confident that we can really do that.
You're confident that we can do that, but the lament of the government, and this is from the Finance Minister more recently, the Chief Economic Adviser once again saying the private sector is not doing its part. Private capex is not picking up. Why? If you believe that all of these opportunities exist and this is the moment for India, why are we still not seeing private investment pick up?
I mean, so in bits and pieces, private investment is happening. I wouldn't say that private investment is not happening. If you were to look at what JSW is doing, we are really investing and investing like hell. So there are many groups which are investing, but across the board, I would say the investment numbers are not as much as it should be. But I think it's time that the private sector...
Is there a confidence issue? Is it a capital issue?
It's more of a confidence issue. I don't think capital is a problem. There's enough money out there. Actually, money is really chasing good projects, good investments. So that's not a problem. It's a confidence issue.
Valan, so let me come to you as the winner of the world's EY award. You know, when you look at the India trajectory today, and I've heard you speak previously about looking at what's happened in China, and you believe China is going through its third phase of growth where it's now focused much more on high-value added as well as innovation. If you look at what's happening in India today, and we're talking about shaping India of the future, what's the role? Where do you believe we're in the cycle at this point in time?
Absolutely, Sharon. So I think that, you know, if we look at our evolution, a lot of the growth in the first phase, you know, came from either building things that we were used to. Even if we see industrial GDP formation, a majority of it came from the auto sector, sectors that have been in India for quite a while. But the new evolving sectors and also that have come about have been in the service economy, for example, with software development, with GCCs, all of that. But that still doesn't allow for product innovation. If we're actually going to become part of global supply chains, we need to be innovating products here, building products and components here, and that is a set of IP that needs to get developed in this country, which has to get done, I would say, over the next decade. So product innovation, I would say, is something that probably we've been a bit slower on.
Because why do you think that's the case? In this journey from becoming a service nation to a product nation, why do you believe we've been slow off the bat?
So honestly, I think there are two or three factors, right? One is that, you know, the ecosystems have not existed to support it. So basically, if we look at how far behind, if we take the electronics ecosystem for example, you know, starting with just printed circuit boards, we don't make advanced printed circuit boards in this country. So then to think of the entire downstream industry from that, it takes a long period of time to develop. So pretty much any sector you take, it's a similar story where a lot of base components are still imported into India, and therefore the whole ecosystem around it is not developed.
Are we closer to breaking out of that now? Are we closer to moving more towards IP-led and innovation-led ecosystems?
