Dear Fellow Shareholders,
It gives me great pleasure to greet you all at this 93rd Annual General Meeting of the Company. Since we last met in the immediate aftermath of the global melt down, India has been, along with China, the first to emerge from the shadows of this global malaise. Even as the economies of the developed Western world struggle to cope with an aging population, breakdown of financial systems, steep fall in asset values and corresponding destruction of wealth and employment prospects, we are seeing yet another step in the inevitable shift of the global economy from Europe and America towards Asia.
Leading this seismic shift are the economic power houses of India and China, though both economies have different triggers. While China benefited from a unilateralist command economy, which enabled the Government to take economic steps without consultation, India, blessed with a vibrant democracy, must necessarily pay the price of this democracy in the form of consensus building. The pace of India’s growth is more measured, but, for that reason is more assured. The other significant difference between the two Asian giants is the dependence of the Chinese economy on exports and Government spending, whereas our own country is powered by the natural entrepreneurial spirit of our people and growth in market demand fuelled by domestic consumption.
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