Whether it is healthcare, infrastructure or the steel business, India is where the opportunity is pointed out panelists Apollo Hospitals' Suneeta Reddy, Tata Steel's TV Narendran, and Nestle India's Suresh Narayanan about the respective sectors they operate in, with SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara adding that the private sector's investment commitments have risen.
The panelists were speaking at a session at BT's Mindrush 2023 event in Mumbai on Wednesday.
"We are able to deliver healthcare in the last mile, but that's not enough. There is so much more to do because even without considering the environment, the disease burden in India is so high that by 2030 we would probably have to spend $1 trillion dollars just for Non-Communicable Diseases," said Reddy, talking about how Indians have a pre-disposition for heart attacks, cancer, strokes and the likes.
"There is an opportunity to do so much," she added. Giving out a few more numbers, Reddy pointed out that India needs 100,000 hospital beds for the next 10 years.
"Now, we have 1 bed per 1,000 people. We need it to be 4 beds. So we are at 25 per cent of what we need to do," she added.
According to her, after the Covid pandemic, a lot of PE money is flowing into acquisitions in the pharma and healthcare space.
"What I would like to see however is more investment into hospital bed creation. The lesson from covid is that private sector has to be incentivised by the government or independently to add more beds and therefore more capex into healthcare," Reddy said.
Maggi-maker Nestle India's CMD Suresh Narayanan agreed that they have noticed a heightened level of consciousness around sugar consumption among their target consumers.
"Reducing sugar by itself is a clear possibility except that nobody might want to buy the product because it tastes like nothing on earth. The challenge is to get technology to do the trick of giving you a reduced sugar product and yet giving you the taste," he noted.
Yet, according to him, it is the most exciting time to be a food company in the country because of the multi-generational consumption happening across older generations, millennials and Gen-Z.
"The good vector between taste, indulgence, nutrition, value and lifestyle is redefining the consumption patterns of India. Our results are reflective of that," he said.
Tata Steel CEO and MD, TV Narendran, also said that they were clear that India is where the opportunity is.
"But 10-15 years back when we wanted to build scale, there were fewer opportunities in India because of fewer inorganic opportunities. Organic growth took time. It took us 10 years to start a new factory," he said.
But the introduction of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code was a great opportunity, he added.
"We were the first company to move and acquire companies under it. We acquired Bhushan Steel. We also acquired two other companies," he said.
Globally, growth is a challenge, he pointed out. "But the India growth story continues to be strong."
Coming at it from another vantage point, Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara of the country's largest lender State Bank of India said private sector capex has actually increased.
Taking a contrary view to the government's concerns about private sector investment not improving, he said: "As per the budget last year, investment commitment was to the tune of $20 trillion in FY22. In FY23, it was to the tune of $37 trillion dollars, as per budget today."
Quoting more figures from the Union Budget document, he also said that private sector commitments in the total capex was up to 50 per cent in FY22. "Now it is about 65 per cent. That's a reflection of private sector confidence," he said.