India will be cautious in its opening up till it’s an emerging economy: Piyush Goyal

NEW DELHI: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal Thursday said that India will be cautious in its opening up process till the time it is an emerging economy and it has to maintain a balance between protecting the needs of industry and the different levels of economic development of other countries and non-market economies when it comes to investment.

At an event organised by the UK-India Business Council, he also said that India is going to bring out a new legal framework to ensure data privacy that would encourage free flow of data among trusted partners.

“Till we are yet an emerging economy or a developed economy, I’ll certainly need to have a little bit more caution in my opening up process,” Goyal said.

The minister said the government has to recognise the different levels of economic development between the UK, US, Europe, Japan, Korea and India, and that it is dealing with non market economies.

“So whatever I do, since we are a MFN (most-favoured nation), and we give national treatment to all investors in the country, I have to make sure that I address any concerns that arise out of non market economies. So that delicate balance becomes my job,” Goyal said.

He also said that India is going to bring out a new legal framework to ensure data privacy that would encourage free flow of data among trusted partners.Goyal said that India and UK can work together to leverage the high level of innovation that Britain’s universities produce. In areas of collaboration for the two sides, he suggested creating platforms for personalized training and virtual reality in AI learning which can become a part of the curriculum in education, collaborate in tele-medicine, develop climate modelling tools, precision farming tools and residue free farming, and partner in organic chemicals, engineering goods and food products.