Retail: $1.2trn by 2021; $1.75trn by 2026

The Industry has been urged to capitalise on the measures announced by the government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and start making investments required to boost economic growth.

The call was made by Dr Krishnamurthy Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, at the ‘Massmerize 2019 – Retail, FMCG & E-commerce Conference’ organized by FICCI on 16 Oct 2019.

“Industry must play the leadership role in making investments,” he underlined.

“Investment has to be long-term and corporates should focus on the long-run. The fundamentals of the economy are fundamentally as strong as before,” he said.

“This gives an immense opportunity for corporates to be able to benefit from consumption by doing the investments that is required to be able to put economy back on the 7% plus growth path to make the country a US$5 trillion economy by 2024-25 and $10 trillion by 2032,” CEA said.

He further reiterated that in order to achieve the target of US$5 trillion economy by 2024-25 and US$10 trillion by 2032, it is imperative that the corporates should also set-up benchmark with regards to honouring contracts of MSMEs and by making timely payments.

In order to increase consumption, Dr Surbramanian emphasised that the corporates should also focus on the technology and big data.

He called for using consumer data to find the preference as well as predict timing of consumption thereby getting a holistic view for making investments much sharper.

“Those who can re-imagine and impact the entire value chain are going to be the real gainers,” pointed out Sanjiv Mehta, Chair, FICCI FMCG Committee and Chairman and Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited.

The Indian retail is one of the fastest growing industries across the globe and is expected to cross US$1 trillion by 2021, according to Krish Iyer, Chair-FICCI Retail & Internal Trade Committee and CEO & President, Walmart India Pvt Ltd.

“It is heartening to know that RBI and the government are working in tandem to address the challenges faced by the industry,” noted Iyer.

“It is important for companies to speak a language that consumers desire and understand,” added Herjit S Bhalla, Co-Chair FICCI FMCG Committee and Managing Director, Hershey India.

He welcomed the recent steps taken by the government to improve the retail sector and highlighted the importance of using vernacular communications to engage with consumers.

In order to achieve overall economic growth, it is important to partner with local or kirana stores as they have now become both adoptive and adaptive to new technology, observed Raghav Rao, Co-Chair FICCI E-Commerce Committee and Vice President, Finance and CFO, Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd.

A FICCI-Deloitte report ‘EVOLVE for consumer’ was also released during the event.

Highlights of the report:

Indian Retail market to reach US$1,200 billion by 2021 and US$1,750 billion by 2026;

Indian E-Commerce market to reach US$84 billion by 2021 and US$200 billion by 2026;

Growth expected not only from large cities and metro but also Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities;

Organized food and grocery sector expected to reach US$75.1 billion by 2025;

Online shoppers expected to increase from current 15% of the online population to 50% by 2026. fiinews.com