Finance Minister assures industry of ‘all possible steps’

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured the industry of possible measures to address sector-wise challenges, as well as a major push to infrastructure, in an informal meeting with industry captains from Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.

The objective of the meeting was to get a sense of ground reality, amid the current economic slowdown, across various industrial sectors of the economy.

K.M. Mammen, executive director-chairperson, MRF, N. Srinivasan, vice-chairman and MD, India Cements, T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, managing director, Sundaram Finance, Srivats Ram of Wheels India, Gopal Mahadevan of Ashok Leyland, R.G. Chandramogan of Hatson Agro, Arun Jain of Intellect Design Arena, Sunitha Reddy of Apollo Hospitals, P. Venketrama Raja of Ramco Group, Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu of LMW, T. Kannan of Thiagarajar Mills and Indian Bank MD Padmaja Chunduru, among others, attended the meet.

According to sources, Mr. Srinivasan said cement was the barometer of economy like the housing stocks in the U.S.

“After a long downturn, cement industry clocked strong double digit growth in FY19 with higher capacity utilisation. If the big ticket infra investments of ₹100 lakh crore over five years are implemented along with the housing schemes, the demand will improve,” he told the Minister in the meeting.