New Delhi, November 10:
Bharti Group Founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Monday said that Indian companies do not get enough support from the Government for investing in other countries.
"We don't have the massive state support required to push the soft power of Indian enterprise, as companies get in the US, UK, France, Germany," Mittal said at the India Global Forum in New Delhi hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Mittal said lack of government support comes in the way in countries where Indian companies have to match the money power of Chinese state companies. "We cannot match the amount of money the Chinese are putting in Africa. The good news is we have tremendous amount of goodwill, our relations have developed for over a century. Any leader of any standing in Ethiopia has been taught by Indian teachers," he said.
Mittal said when his company ventured into Sri Lanka, the government there was expecting assistance of $100 million for a project. "I conveyed it in Ministry of External Affairs and officers in Prime Minister Office but nothing moved after that. Few months after that, China doled out cheque of $1 billion to Sri Lanka which helped its companies," Mittal said.
Mittal said positive changes are taking place under the Modi Government but more needs to be done as many companies are taking risks on their own in investing overseas.
"Indian companies in my mind are taking risks – both geographically and from the business returns point of view – we do not get chaperoned by the Indian Government. We are far from it and in fact, I was complaining about we do not get enough support," Mittal said. US companies like Google, Facebook, Apple get tremendous support from their governments, he added.
He said if there are capacities for certain companies to go out and scale out even more outside India, they should be very much welcomed and sometimes there are strategic reasons to do it.
Bharti Enterprise chairman recalled a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Vladimir Putin where Russian conglomerate Sistema's chairman Yevtushenkov was present during the meeting between heads of the two states.
Mittal said, "A PMO official after the meeting asked me who is Yevtushenkov and said Putin was asking PM why don't you give a telecom licence to him. I said you should have taken me along with you and I could have also asked for licence in Russia."
(This article was published on November 10, 2014)
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