Referring to the geopolitical events that have been occurring over the last few years, he said: “India has a huge potential to achieve GDP growth of around 8% per annum. If you look at the geopolitical events, these have caused most of the countries to be wary of China, and those opportunities are now shifting to other countries. So countries such as Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand have a huge potential. Sadly, Bangladesh, of course, is going through a turmoil right now and let us all pray and hope that things settle down over there so that not many lives are lost.”
Talking about how India can achieve rapid growth with proper direction, Veeraswamy said that we should take a step forward from “Make in India to also Think in India”.
“If you look at the intellectual property kind of industries such as Google, Facebook — these are all industries which do not have much capital. Only human capital is there and everything else is intellectual. So if people venture into those kinds of activities, something like artificial intelligence — which is the next big thing that will take the whole world by storm — then I think we definitely have a huge potential to succeed,” he said.
Lauding the Tamil Nadu government’s efforts in building adequate infrastructure that could help build entrepreneurial efforts, the MP said the most important things are reliable electricity supply, water and good road infrastructure. “Tamil Nadu has been providing this for the last few decades. In electricity, there is a 20% subsidy for the initial three years. This is a big incentive for people who want to start up. So the government has always been supportive of people who want to start their own businesses and anybody who wants to start a new business can approach the guidance department,” he said.
During the interactive question and answer session that followed the address, the MP spoke about the significance of having a separate ministry for micro industries. “I have been urging the government to do this. Because the moment they (micro enterprise) are clubbed with the medium and small industries, their woes are not heard adequately and their issues are not addressed separately. So we are in the process of trying to convince the government on this aspect,” he said. Alluding to how the government of Tamil Nadu has taken several initiatives to encourage women entrepreneurship with subsidies and interest subvention, Veeraswamy pointed out that Tamil Nadu has the highest number of women entrepreneurs. “About 25% of our MSMEs are women entrepreneurs. I think that is very commendable,” he stated.
