Delivering the valedictory address at the 71st annual session of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), Ahluwalia said: "The country should benchmark its anti-dumping procedures to those of other countries. This way, the country would be able to respond effectively and positively."

Ahluwalia also urged the domestic industry to get out of the mind set that globalisation was hurting the Indian industry. "Globalisation brings opportunities but also challenges. Today, people are obsessed with challenges and are not looking at opportunities," he said.

The lesson for India is that globalisation is not easy. Globalisation is also not merely removal of tariff barriers. These have to be accompanied by building domestic competition and improving technology, hestressed.

Ahluwalia, who was finance secretary for seven years till a few months ago, said the government and the industry has to manage the transition while recognising that there is not alternative but to globalise. He said there is substantial agreement on what needs to be done to become competitive in open economy. What is important is the phasing of transition.

Emphasising on the need to reduce fiscal deficit, he said resources have to move from subsidies and unproductive expenditure to issues of social development like health and basic education. Individual states have to follow likewise.

Responding to criticism from certain quarters that import tariff reduction over the past five years had been too fast which affected domestic industry, Ahluwalia said this argument could not be sustained as the exchange of the rupee against the dollar had changed from Rs 20 per dollar when tariff restructuring began to over Rs 42 per dollar at present. "Tariffs cannot be blamed for the industry's present state,"he said.

He said even with the present tariff structure, India continued to be among the countries with the highest import tariffs.

Ahluwalia said that the level of sensitisation regarding the economic reforms in the states was still much lesser than the centre government. Each states has to be sensitised on this account, he said.

Participating in the same panel discussion, National Council for Applied Economic Research director general Rakesh Mohan said the country will not be able to globalise its economy effectively till poverty is removed and education is imparted to the entire population. "We cannot globalise when two-thirds of our women are illiterate," he said, adding that to globalise the country needs to look inwards first.

He said that most of the infrastructure facilities do not even reach the poor and therefore most of the subsidy also does not reach poor. He also highlighted the need for financial sector reforms.

Former Hindustan Lever chairman S M Datta said in his address that thegovernment should work towards acceleration of domestic demand which could revive the domestic industry. He said this was more important in view of the poor export scenario due to developments in the south-east Asian and other countries across the globe.