Look at poverty eradication as a business opportunity: PM

Our Economic Bureau

New Delhi, Dec 2: Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, who could not attend the India Economic Summit, made his presence felt through a message asking the world business community to treat elimination of poverty as a business opportunity.

In his message, which was read at the inauguration of the summit by CII president Sanjiv Goenka, Mr Vajpayee said the continued co-existence of affluence and want on the same planet and within the same countries was a “sign of poverty of the human spirit.”

“Besides being an ethical imperative, elimination of poverty and promotion of all-round development for all human beings on the earth is also the biggest business opportunity,” he added.

Mr Vajpayee emphasised, “only if the developing economies are helped to achieve the well-being of all, the developed economies will be able to both tackle the current slowdown and sustain their future growth.”

Referring to the international crisis, Mr Vajpayee said, “our domestic economy is sufficiently large and diversified that it can absorb such unexpected developments,” and hoped that the domestic economy would grow faster on the strength of the accelerated implementation of the reform process.

The Prime Minister also asked the business leaders not to miss the tremendous untapped potential for economic growth in the country offered by its huge size. He hoped that the world business community would go back from the New Delhi summit with renewed confidence and greater commitment to being partners in India’s march to progress.