Anxious industry hopes for positive signals in Kalam address

  • 06/06/2004

  • Pioneer (New Delhi)

Industry and trade will be anxiously scanning the Presidential address to a joint sitting of Parliament on Monday for more reasons than one. President A P J Kalam is expected to outline the new government's approach to a number of critical economic policy issues. With Finance Minister P Chidambaram's budget still a month away, the pronouncements made on Monday could hold the key to matters affecting the course of policy in the interregnum, industry officials assert. Major among these will be the government's approach to job reservations, labour policies, subsidies, foreign investment, development plans for agriculture and related areas as well as manufacturing and infrastructure.