Minister of Railways and Coal Piyush Goyal on Thursday said that India is undergoing a change in the economic narrative and rebranding itself with technology driving growth.

Addressing the opening session at the World Economic Forum he said, “ India was earlier well known for Yoga and Ayurveda, cricket or Bollywood. Its economic narrative is now changing. India is now being recognised for being honest in its dealing, where technology drives growth.”

He added, “I think there is no better place in the world today to invest in, no larger market than the Indian market and there is no pole which is going to be more important than India for the global economy”.

Emphasising on the need for a strong foundation to robust growth, the Minister said that mega structures cannot be built on a weak foundation, if India has to prepare itself for global challenges of tomorrow; the country needs to develop a framework that will ensure decades of prosperity.

Talking about the railway sector, he said that the government is moving aggressively and creating enabling environment to create employment with programmes for rail track and safety maintenance.

He added that steps such as monetisation of real estate and prime parcels of land owned by the Railways will help to generate capital for future investments in the sector without burdening the passengers.

“If I look at the amount of investment in pipeline and activate that, it will create 2-2.5 lakh jobs in existing projects,” Goyal said.

Ajay S Banga, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mastercard, said, “the US was of the view that many countries that had traditionally led the world in the Post-World War II era had withdrawn from the world stage and it is time for India to step in and fill the void”.

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