Delivering the second RL Sanghvi Endowment annual lecture at Ahmedabad Management Association here, he said, "It is time the current account transactions were made easier and the legitimate inward remitances of foreign exchanges hassle-free, before we can move on to fuller capital account convertibility."

He cited the recent example of Hongkong and Taiwan where the conventional wisdom has succeeded in restricting stock market speculation by foreign funds. The experience there has shown that it is not the residents who are greater villains but the foreign banks and speculative funds which profit by taking positions against the currency values. They could avail of the freedom of operation which liberalisedfinancial systems allowed.

In his opinion, India has substantially ensured free convertibility to non-residents. The question is how the residents and resident corporates were treated. The debate about capital convertibility has now centered around the possible dangers to the rupee and hence the economy."

Venkitaramanan, who spoke on "Indian economy: crisis and opportunity", said that the country with an annual growth rate of 5 to 6 per cent for the last five years with a comfortable forex reserves could not be said to be really doing bad. However, the crisis is to be viewed not just in terms of business but continued poverty, illiteracy, low health standards, low per capita and farm productivity, India's lagging behind other countries in the region and its inability to be insulated from a peaceful Indo-Pak relationship.

He also spoke on a finance minister's dilemma between privatisation and the role of public sector undertakings (PSU), asking banks to perform and at the same time not to take risks,keeping non-performing assets (NPAs) under control. He said that even the private sector would need the government help to fight at several global fora. The private sector is yet to invest in the infrastructure sector which remains our Achilles' heel. He had a word of praise steps initiated by chief vigilance officer N Vittal for reforms in public sector enterprises.

Referring to WTO, he said, India would have to evolve quickly a fast-moving responsive system to face the new regime which has given a legalised platform to the rich North to fight the poorer South. u