What is the Emerging Markets Forum? What made the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and IDFC bring it to India?

Emerging Markets Forum is a network of thought leaders, opinion makers, policy formulators and business people who come together to discuss issues of global and national significance. It is mainly a network of leading minds from emerging markets who create a platform for an open and informed debate focused on emerging markets. Usually the forum has four meetings in a year with one meeting focused on global markets including Latin America, Africa and Asia. So far we met in Jakarta in 2007, in Hanoi in 2008, and this year it is being held in Mumbai. The forum has emerged out of the Centennial Group based in Washington DC .

Does the theme of this meet take anything from the financial crisis around the world?

There are three distinct themes. One is the financial crisis where we are taking advantage of experience of a number of people to understand what the crisis means for emerging markets, for India and the lessons we can learn. The second theme is climate change and the challenge of energy independence and efficiency in the broader context of global climate change. Then there are a series of papers specifically focused on India.

There was an interesting paper on India’s emergence as an affluent society in the future. Could you tell us more?

Yes. There is a report called India 2039 that focuses on how India can leapfrog to become an affluent society. It starts with the proposition that the continuation of India’s celebrated growth rate is not pre-ordained and much depends on how we exploit opportunities created in the past fifty years. What remains to be done in many respects is harder than what has been achieved so far. The debate really is beyond simple reforms — trade liberalisation, banking and insurance reforms. These are just a part of it.

Much harder work that needs to be done……

The harder work is broadly in three pockets. First is improving governance. Governance is a much abused word but it is very important. In fact there are many components to it such as improving the functioning of administration, judiciary and effectiveness of electoral system. The second is how to improve the delivery of public services. The quality and reach of basic public services is increasingly falling short of rising aspirations. The third is India’s role in the region and the world. There is much talk about India becoming the third largest economy by 2015 as if it is a given that we will arrive at super powerdom. We would like to question that. How can we contemplate a bright future for ourselves if the region we are in remains permanently unstable?