Finance Summit

The much awaited mega event of the Finance Club of SIBM Hyderabad (The Mint Club), Finsummit 2.0, Towards a 5$ Trillion Economy – Fearless in The Face of Uncertainity, was predominated by the presence of several stalwarts from the Corporate World. The event aimed to unfold a profound understanding of the current scenario of the Indian Economy alongside carrying out the discussion about the ideas of sustenance and risk – taking in the current VUCA World. 

Lamp Lighting ceremony marked the beginning of the event followed by the welcome speech of the Convener for the day, Dr. Shyamsunder Chitta. Although he started his discussion by pointing out the rough phase through which the Indian economy is currently going through, he also mentioned the probability for this to be a temporary situation as there is sufficient increase in FDI. He further laid down the path for the discussion by questioning whether the current scenario depicts the picture of just a slowdown of the Indian economy or is it a Recession.

Dr. Ravi Kumar Jain rightly pointed out the fact that the deliberations by these illustrious and eloquent speakers gave much clarity to the young minds.

Mr. Navin Vohra, National Head-Valuation and Business modelling, EY, was the first speaker of the day where he started his deliberation with 3 main agendas 

• Current scenario of economic slowdown
• Reason for the slowdown
• Steps that can be taken to overcome this situation

He further went on to discuss how demonetisation and GST complexity contributed to disruption and how it has impacted the unorganised sector and has led to unemployment. He pointed out the strong demographic dividend that India offers and also emphasised on the importance of building startup ecosystem in India. “All is not doom and gloom”. With this, Mr Vohra provided a rich and deep insight on the various aspects of market slowdown.

Mr. Vinod Juneja, Director, SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd, discussed about the Trade War between USA and China. Before getting into the topic he discussed how “Made in US” and “First US” slogans led to the winning of the US president against Hillary Clinton and thereafter how the trade war is bringing drudgery to both the nations. One reason for the same being USA accusing China of stealing its Intellectual Property. As a result of launching this trade war against China, the US deficit grew. In this context he also touched upon the economic war between China, Korea and Japan. Lastly, he mentioned the young minds being the actual asset for any nation who can think out of the box to contribute to the nation’s development.

The event further progressed under the dominance of Mr. K V Chaitanya Murthy, Vice President, Business Development and Investments, Puravankara Group, who discussed about Mending Banks and Bending of NBFCs, NBFC conundrum and ascending market share of private bank. He also stated the possible responses to this Crisis. He summarised his deliberation by pointing out the fact that the whole system of Assessment should be done carefully and start-ups should be encouraged by schemes such as the 59-minute loan scheme.

Following the tea break was the panel discussion moderated by Mr. Kingshuk Nag (Editor-in-Chief, Khabar Street.com) and 5 panel members including Mr. Arthur Samson (Branch Dircetor, Knight Frank), Mr. Ridham Lakhani (Head-Karvy Fotune, Karvy), Mr Deepak Gupta (CHRO, Karvy),
Mr. George Paul (Head-Compliance and Business Growth, First Rate), Mr. R S Balasubramanyam (Advisor-Corporates). The discussion began with the importance of corporate tax and the impact of oil price on Indian Economy. The panellists seemed to be very optimistic about the reduction in Corporate Tax. Mr Lakhani clearly mentioned that it is very much possible to reach the 5$ trillion economy by 2025 with the very progressive growth till 2021 having a bundle of creative talent pool with a mean age of 26 years who come up with latest ideas and technologies. With this he says we can target to achieve 8$ trillion economy as well because “It’s the journey not the destination”. But for this we need to act today. Speaking about the employment scenario Mr. Gupta said that there is always scarcity for good talent. So people with appropriate skill set will never find it difficult to find a job. Infact Mr. Gupta is of the opinion that this is a slowdown and not a recession because earlier we grew by 6%-7% and now it is by 5%. He said that it is a growth cycle that we follow i.e., creation of job means increased consumption and increased consumption means increased investment.

With this and vote of thanks from Thota Praneeth, Head of Mint Club, SIBM Hyderabad followed by the National Anthem, this mega event came to its friutful end.