Need To Further Speed Up Decision-Making To Beat China: Nitin Gadkari

Davos: With China seeking to position itself as the new leader of global economy in place of the US, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said India also needs to grab this opportunity as the world is looking at it with high hopes and it would need to further fast-track the decision-making process.

Mr Gadkari, who is here to attend the annual World Economic Forum meeting, said India also aspires to be a world leader and a global economic superpower, and it would need to work at the same speed as China in terms of policies, administration and decision-making processes.

"We are the fastest growing economy, but China is ahead of us in size. Their advantage as also disadvantage is that they are a communist country and they do not have a democracy," he said on whether India has missed an opportunity with China trying to present itself as the new champion of globalisation here at WEF.

"In our country, we have democracy and the good thing is that the Narendra Modi-led government is investment-friendly and development oriented. Also, it is committed to fast-track decision-making process and to make it a corruption free country," he told PTI in an interview.

Still, the pace of decision-making is "faster in China than us", the minister said, adding that therefore, it happens at times that there is an opportunity but someone else takes it away.

"So what we need to do is to work at China's pace in terms of our policies, our administration and at state levels. We need to implement all the necessary changes in the decision-making process because we want to be the world leader and a global economic superpower," he said.

At a time when there are fears that the US would increasingly look inward under its new President Donald Trump, thus posing risk to the globalisation process, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in an address here at WEF earlier this week, sought to position his country as the new champion of globalisation.

Mr Gadkari said, "We need to take forward the country and we need to do necessary work for that," as China is trying to take the place of the US as the global economic leader.

"It is natural for anyone to aspire but we should also look at moving ahead in the competition by thinking about the weaknesses and addressing them. We need to convert our problems into opportunities."

"If we keep moving ahead and further fast-track the decision-making process, we can certainly move ahead and the world is also looking at us with huge expectations," he added.