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PM Narendra Modi keeps music playing: No red tape, only red carpet for Japan

‘Japan has hardware, India has software… together we can make miracles,’ says Modi.

A DAY after Japan announced a 3.5 trillion yen (Rs 2.1 lakh crore) investment in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday tried to hardsell India as a manufacturing destination, assuring that there would be no red tape, only the red carpet.

Delivering the keynote address at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, co-hosted by Japan External Trade Organisation (Jetro), Modi said, ?I?ve come to assure you there is no red tape but only red carpet that awaits you in India.? He said India was also the only place where the Japanese industry would find all the three Ds ? democracy, demography and demand.

?I have come here to assure you that if you have to look anywhere outside Japan, you do not need to look here or there,? he said. ?We particularly want to encourage and invite small and medium enterprises, as also smallscale industries,? he said.

Stressing that India guarantees democracy, safety, security and justice, he told Japanese investors that the country is a ?God-gifted location? for reaching out to global markets.

?Just as India is focusing on Look East policy, it seems Japan is now pursuing a ?Look at India Policy?,? he said, adding that India would strive to replicate the Japanese model of work culture.

?Without Japan, India is incomplete and without India, Japan is incomplete?, he said. ?Japan has hardware, India has software… together we can make miracles… Aiye apna kismet aazmaiye (Come and try your luck),? he said.

Meanwhile, a top ranking Japanese official revealed that Tokyo wanted to include Modi?s idea of a ?special task force for Japan in the PMO? in the joint statement but New Delhi did not play ball.

The Japanese official told The Indian Express that the Indian bureaucracy did not want the ?new idea? of a task force ? to facilitate Japanese business ? to be included

in the Tokyo declaration. Japan wanted it as part of the negotiated joint statement, since that becomes part of the official document.

?But we are happy that Modi announced the setting up of the cell in the PMO in his speech to the industry. So, although the Tokyo declaration does not have it mentioned, we hope that this step ? which has been announced by the PM ? will be implemented soon,? the official said.

Modi had said on Monday that he had decided to create a special Japan-plus management team in the PMO which would be dedicated to facilitate Japanese investors. He said he would appoint two officials in India?s industrial team as per Japan?s choice.

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First published on: 03-09-2014 at 07:32 IST
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