More govt support needed for investment abroad, says Sunil Mittal

Making a strong pitch for economic diplomacy, Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises on Monday called for much greater government support for extending Indian enterprise abroad.

"We don't have the massive state support required to push the soft power of Indian enterprise, as companies get in the US, UK, France, Germany," Sunil Bharti Mittal, said at the India Global Forum in New Delhi hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The owner of Airtel Africa that operates in 17 countries, Mittal said lack of adequate government support becomes an additional hurdle in a context like in the continent where it is impossible to match the money power of Chinese state companies.

"We cannot match the amount of money the Chinese are putting in Africa. The good news is we have tremendous amount of goodwill, our relations have developed for over a century. Any leader of any standing in Ethiopia has been taught by Indian teachers," he said.

From Africa, Mittal gave the recent example of corporate action abroad "as an important arm of the government to do things they cannot do" like in controlling the Ebola epidemic in the continent.

"The government leans on us for the efforts on Ebola control in 3-4 countries. We went in quickly into Sierra Leone, where we operate, and then into Liberia and later to Nigeria, Ghana and DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo)," Mittal added.

Bharti Airtel has also agreed to join a pan-African mobile telephone fundraising campaign that would allow 700 million subscribers to make donations with their mobile devices to Ebola control.

Citing the instance of Bangladesh where issues like Teesta river waters-sharing also affected business relations, Mittal said: "Businesses are affected to a large extent by the relations between states. Yet we don't have the full extent of state support."