"I am very bullish on everything I see happening in India today. As a business leader it really seems to have shifted in the last two or three years and much more positively," said David Cote, CEO of Honeywell International, which was honoured last night with the USIBC award for a "US company contributing most to Indo-US Commerical Relationship".
"My biggest concern is that the political will continue to make all that happen. Not as much among the current leaders but leaders four years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now is that the political will continue," he told PTI.
"If that political will continues and the change and the opening up continues-- but there is still more things that need to change such as in retail -- and I hope all of that continues and the sky is the limit for Honeywell," he said.
"If you have an emerging market economy doing well, particularly as big as India, it is all good for us," he added.
"The biggest challenge for us is going to come down to infrastructure, physical and the softer stuff like paperwork... If you are trying to establish greater manufacturing in the country where there is imports/exports ...you have to be quickly be able to get material in, process it in a factory and ship it back out again.
"There is no benefit to longer cycle times, it has to be as short as possible," Cote said referring to the kind of paperwork needed in conducting transactions.
He said long paperworks will keep on holding back the country and his firm's investment. "It makes no sense. It is not being looked at as a country but rather as a series of bureaucracies and those are the sort of things that in my view are going to continue to hold back the country and will hold back our investment in the country.
"I don't want to invest in manufacturing if that is what is going to happen," the top Executive of Honeywell remarked on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the USIBC.
Cote, when asked to take a comparative look at India and China, argued that in terms of intellectual capital there is nothing to beat India. The area where India would lag behind would be in the realm of getting things done "faster and easier".
"From an intellectual capital perspective the kind of R&D capability that we see in India are unsurpassed.... The thing that I end up seeing in China, it is faster and easier to get something done in China than it is in India by a long shot... That gets back to the bureaucracy... But India has got all the makings of a superb economy going forward," Cote said.
The Honeywell chairman praised the BOT system in place in India. "On the physical side, one of the things that I have been really been intrigued with is the build, own, transfer, the BOT as it is referred to, which is a good way for the government getting out of the way;inducing private industry to get it done correctly and fast.
"Industry gets a return and the government gets it back. I think that is brilliant. With a number of foreign investors who would be interested in doing something along with local or domestic manufacturers and construction companies would be interested it is a brilliant idea.... I think it will work out very well," Cote said.
Asked what the future thrusts of Honeywell were going to be in India, Cote said, "We are going to focus on the same businesses. We have a big R&D presence that goes very well and you are going to see us keep doing that. Those are the critical axis for our growth in the country. Aerospace -- defence and commercial--advanced R&D like we do in Bangalore... we are essentially going to do the same thing..."
The CEO of Honeywell stressed that economic reforms would have to be seen on a more on a continuous basis.
"All the stuff that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh started in his former job in 1991-92 time frame, just keep going. Keep adding on."
"There are plenty of stuff that can be made easier to do, easier for businesses to do. Being able to conduct trade in increased business adds to the prosperity of a country and prosperity that most citizens in a country are in favour of," he said.
"And business can help in this and government needs to look at it and say "we need to control some things" but there is a fine line in what is an adequate amount of control and what gets to a point when you are inhibiting.
"What you want to be able to do is have that minimal amount of inhibition so that you are controlling the things that you need to and otherwise let people out there make for themselves and make things happen and they will.Take a look at what Indian entrepreneurs have been able to do in the US. Imagine if they are doing all that in India..." he said.
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