Kamal Nath and the Economic Growth of India

Over the last few years India has had a booming economy in large part thanks to changes in the economic policy of the country. The man behind these changes was Kamal Nath the former Minister of Commerce and Industry, and one of the rising stars of Indian politics.

Of all of the Cabinet jobs that are available in India one of the most important is that of Minister of Commerce and Industry. This is a position that Nath held for five years from 2004 to 2009. This period coincided with one of the strongest periods of growth in the nations history. This was not a coincidence but rather a result of a well conceived plan on the part of Minister Nath. As a result of his success in this regard Nath has become something of a darling of the business community in India.

One of the major achievements of Minister Kamal Nath as Minister of Industry and Commerce was to open up the economy. One of the challenges that India had faced for years was that the government had operated under very protectionist trade policies. This severely slowed the prospect of economic growth and it was something that had to change. Nath was able to negotiate trade agreements with a number of countries, China and Pakistan first and foremost that have greatly increased India's foreign exports. The result has been a boom in the economy.

The other big thing that had to happen for India to grow economically was that their needed to be more transparency in the way that the country operated and the government needed to reduce the red tape, while at the same time improving infrastructure and the road network. Finding investors to put money into India had been a challenge because there was no transparency, investors were afraid of corrupt officials or running afoul of obscure rules, or simply having projects delayed by bureaucrats for no good reason. It was clearly necessary to change that if the country was to prosper. Kamal Nath brought in a great deal of new government policy to help with that. In addition things like new patent laws and banking laws also helped to encourage investment.

While it was all well and good to change the policy within India it was also important to make sure that the world knew about it. In order to get business to come to India Nath had to make sure that the world knew that things had changed and that the country was open for business. As a result Kamal Nath had to become the nations best salesman, travelling around the world promoting the virtues of doing business in India. In large part he was very successful as evidenced by India's booming economy. Kamal Nath has since moved on to the post of Minister of Urban Development, another daunting task as he needs to help India's cities grow in an organized manner.