Prime Minister Manmohan Singh exhorted India Inc to brace up for a sustained 14 per cent growth in manufacturing. Addressing the 78th Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) here, he indicated that tax reforms would be carried further in the forthcoming Budget.Singh said the tax system in the country needs to move towards greater rationalisation of VAT and CENVAT systems, and most importantly, towards a common goods and services tax. ‘‘That will make India a genuine common market.’’Expressing concern over the marginal improvement in the share of manufacturing in national income from 15.8 per cent in 1991 to 17 per cent in 2003, he said this should be in the range of 25-35 per cent. He also proposed setting up an Empowered Committee of chief ministers to expedite power sector reforms.On the anticipated slippage on 12,000 MW of new power generation capacity, the PM stressed on improving distribution systems and cutting thefts and losses. There should be competitive supply and better revenue collection mechanisms in the power sector, he said.‘‘I am going to propose to our Chief Ministers to forge a similar all-party consensus (as in the case of VAT) in the power sector,’’ he said.Singh presented his vision of an Asian Economic Community, built on the plank of a pan-Asian Free Trade Agreement, the ‘‘third pole’’ of the world economy after the EU and NAFTA.‘‘The 21st century will be an Asian century and India must have a major role in making that happen. The decade before us must be of investment, which should convert India into a first rate agricultural, industrial and service economy,’’ Singh said in his address. He, however, said that a concensus approach would be adopted to move forward in the ‘crucial’ area (labour market) of reforms and after putting in place a sound social security net.
