Narendra Modi discusses global economic turmoil with industrialists, economists

New Delhi, Sep 8: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met union ministers, corporate heads and economists to discuss the turmoil in the global markets sparked off by the Chinese economic slowdown and attendant opportunities for India.

Among the ministers present at the meeting were Arun Jaitley (finance) Suresh Prabhu (railways), Nitin Gadkari (road transport and shipping, Nirmala Sitharaman (commerce), Dharmendra Pradhan (petroleum) and Piyush Goyal (coal, power and renewable energy).

Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and Aayog member Bibek Debroy also attended the meeting on 'Recent Global Events: Opportunities for India'.

Top officials at the meeting included Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chhib Duggal, Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia and Industry Secretary Amitabh Kant.

Eight economists, 14 industry representatives and four fom major financial instituions, including State Bank of India chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, ICICI Bank's Chanda Kochar, IDFC's Rajiv Lall and the CEO of the recently launched Bandhan Bank, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, were also present.

Apart from heads of industry chambers, top industrialists such as Reliance Industries' Mukesh Ambani, Aditya Birla Group head Kumar Mangalam Birla, Adani group chairman Gautam Adani, Tata group chief Cyrus Mistry, Wipro boss Azim Premji, Sun Pharma CMD Dilip Sanghvi, ITC's YC Deveshwar and IL&FS chairman Ravi Parthasarathy also attended.

Public sector enterprises were represented by heavy equipment maker BHEL managing director B. Prasada Rao and gas utility GAIL chairman B.C. Tripathi.

Aditya Birla group chief economist Ajit Ranade, JP Morgan chief economist Jahangir Aziz and Morgan Stanley's emerging markets head Ruchir Sharma were among the economists and market experts who attended the meeting.

IANS