The Confederation of Indian Industry would focus on 'manufacturing competitiveness' in the current fiscal and also carry out a study with Mckinsey focusing on the country's manufacturing competitiveness vis-a-vis China. The CII's attention in the southern region in 2002-03 would be centered on development of human resources, infrastructure and technology, CII president Ashok Soota told a press conference in Chennai. "These factors will be some of the key determinants of competitiveness," he added.

Stating that the CII would adopt a two-pronged strategy to achieve competitiveness, he said the first part would be made up of industry action, with companies taking initiatives to benchmark best international norms and improving competitiveness.

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The second would relate to government action, including domestic policy reforms coupled with external sector reforms at the central and state levels.

A sustained GDP growth rate of eight per cent would not be possible unless the industry annually grew by 10 per cent.

He said to ensure that the country was among the top 20 on the World Economic Forum's Growth Competitiveness Index by 2010 the current fiscal would have to witness a minimum economic growth rate of 5.2 per cent, which could rise to even six per cent if the conditions were favourable.

Welcoming the presence of China in the WTO, Soota said it would create a level playing ground.

He said China was being looked as a market from where India could do business with other parts of the world.

CII had also decided to set up a US based offshore IT committee, to provide a forum for Indian companies in the US to exchange views on market trends and establish norms for

CII would introduce "Quality Stamp" for the country's IT services. The stamp would be a "character certificate" to win customer confidence and would have stringent qualifying criteria based on the CII's "business excellence award" model, he said.

Bureau Report