A 'crime' not to look at investment in India: Ashok Jacob...

A 'crime' not to look at investment in India: Ashok Jacob

Australian companies and superannuation funds are being urged to invest more in India amid predictions its economic rise will be the biggest growth opportunity for local business over the next two decades.

Financial heavyweights, including Macquarie Group's next chief executive, Shemara Wikramanayake, and Ellerston Capital chairman Ashok Jacob, on Thursday highlighted the potential of a country forecast to be home to a fifth of the world's working-age population by 2025.

The calls came at the launch of a Turnbull government-commissioned report on India's business potential by former top diplomat Peter Varghese, after a deterioration in relations between Australia and China in recent months.

Although few Australian businesses have invested in India, Mr Jacob, a former Packer family adviser, said it was incumbent on boards to at least consider it.

"Any CEO, any board, that does not take a good hard look at India will be asked in 10 years' time, did you at least look at it, did you visit the place, do you know what your competitors' markets in India look like?" he said.

"And there will be some looking back in a decade's time, and an organisation here may look at it and not invest in it, which is fine, but not looking at it in my view would be a crime," Mr Jacob said at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event.

Ms Wikramanayake said that as Australia's $2.6 trillion pool of super swelled, funds would inevitably have to look overseas.

"I think Australian investors will just, with this volume of money they need to get invested, have to start looking outside of this country," she said.

The report by Mr Varghese, an AMP director and a former high commissioner to India, targets growth in Australian investment in India to more than $100 billion, up from $10.3 billion today. It calls for a strategic focus on India, and says priority sectors include education, tourism, resources, agribusiness, energy, health, finance and infrastructure.

Macquarie, which makes most of its money offshore, is one of the few major Australian companies with a big presence in India.

Ms Wikramanayake said business people had historically been reluctant to invest in India because the risks had been high but "things are starting to change now".

She said Macquarie had started slowly, with a stockbroking business in 2004, but now had 1300 staff and managed $3 billion in investments, including in infrastructure such as renewable energy.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/...ent-in-india-ashok-jacob-20180802-p4zv4s.html