“First and foremost, the infrastructure deficit in the country will need to be addressed. There is an urgent need for aggressive investment to improve the infrastructure through higher levels of FDI. The government is fully engaged in this process. And my ministry will be engaged in this closely to explore new avenues to harness FDI for infrastructure into India,” Mukherjee said, indicating that his Ministry won’t just be dealing with diplomatic issues alone.

“In the coming years, I feel FDI will play an important role (for India) to reach a higher share than the present level of global trade. With the congenial policy we have in place, it should be possible. In fact, investors are raring to come to India,” Mukherjee said, before seconding the concerns expressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday. “As the PM mentioned, problems are not from the outside, but from inside. Sometimes, we are quibbling over issues that are non-issues. If we can avoid that, I don’t see any reason why India should not succeed in getting large investments from across the world,” he said.

Admitting that there is “corruption” and “inefficiency” in the bureaucracy, Mukherjee said that reforms in the bureaucracy should be ‘very fast.’ “What we need is to change mindsets - entry into new arenas always cause uncertainty,” he added, citing the example of the opposition he faced from the pharma industry when signing on the WTO agreement in 1994. “The pharma industry was very disturbed about the TRIPS agreement. Today, the industry is one of the top performers,” he said.