Will be surprised if India's GDP doesn't grow well over next few years, says Cisco chief

San Francisco: Narendra Modi, India’s newlyappointed Prime Minister, has an excellent reputation as being"decisive and focused" on business, which is going to be “verygood” for the country, tech giant Cisco Chairman John Chambershas said.

The three-time Gujarat Chief Minister has steered the BJPto a landslide victory in general elections, with the partywinning a majority in Parliament. It is the first time since1984 that a single party has won a majority on its own.

“The new government came in without forming a coalition,and Narendra Modi as a PM has an excellent reputation as beingdecisive and focused on business,” Chambers told reportershere.

“I think that is going to be very good for the countryand I am very optimistic of what that means to the country’seconomic growth,” he added.

On the past issues of policy paralysis and the way ahead,he said India has a chance to get economic growth going againand what is needed for the young people.

“I am very much a believer in India and the rule of law.India has 600,000 engineers, English-speaking… It hastremendous resource to focus in on,” Chambers said.

He added: “I think that India as a country is veryresilient… I am very committed to see our business in Indianot stay at one and a half per cent or so but a number muchhigher than that.

“But I think, having a government that has a majority byitself will allow for tough decisions to be made as well asgood decisions to be made… So I am very optimistic about thenew PM. I think that I will be surprised if India does notgrow its GDP well over the next 3 or 4 years.”

Cisco is “deeply committed” to India and the companyexpects to increase its business well over the 2 per cent, hesaid.

“We are committed to the long run,” Chambers added.Cisco has over 10,000 employees in India across citieslike Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune andHyderabad. Of these, 8,000 people are part of the R&D set up.

Although the company gets about 2 per cent of its overUSD 48 billion global revenues from India, it is confident ofgrowing the share. It expects to garner 5 per cent of itsrevenues from the Indian market in the next five years withbusiness growing over 20 per cent.

On his letter to US President Barack Obama about theNational Security Agency’s (NSA) spying practices, Chamberssaid: “This is not about the US or Cisco. This is about how dowe get consistency in the global supply chain, because theglobal supply chain almost touches all your countries. Andtoday there are no rules. It’s like the wild, wild West.”

He added: “We have to as a country and as a world cometogether to maintain the power of the Internet to all of us.”

Chambers said however that one does not know if allegedinstances of NSA intercepting products from the IT industryare true or not true.

“We have not found any issue that indicates that theyintercepted our products,” he said.

On the damage done by the NSA scandal to business, hesaid: “Basically, everybody needs to take a step back and saywe need to address the supply chain. This is not unique to onecountry and is not unique to one company. This is a healthydebate. We need rules. I think without that it slows IT
growth.”

Talking about the challenge for Cisco in the emergingmarkets, Chambers said there are unique challenges likepopulation, income levels and so on.

“But I think there are unique opportunities too. Thereare advantages of not having a given structure where you canskip a generation and look to the future and advantages faroutweigh the disadvantages,” he added.

PTI