Speaking on his maiden visit to the city after taking over as president ofthe apex chamber, Arun Bharat Ram said, "a false dichotomy is being createdin the Indian context as if only new economy matters, while the old getsconsigned to history books. We would like to dispel this theory since therethere is absolutely no conflict between the two. The brick and mortareconomy can only become more efficient by adopting tools from the neweconomy."

The CII president unveiled the findings of ASCON (CII's AssociationsCouncil) which pointed out that the Indian industry is firmly on therecovery path. "More importantly, the growth was not just confined to the`new economy' sectors," Bharat Ram said.

The study shows that the number of sectors registering growth of over 20 percent had increased during the 1999 fiscal in terms of three crucialparameters: production, sales and exports.

While software and personal computers notched up the highest productiongrowth rates of 60 per cent and 40 per cent respectively, the refineries andauto component industry were not far behind at 30 per cent.

"We expect GDP growth in the current fiscal to be around 7 per cent, whileindustrial and agricultural growth will be around 8.5 per cent and 1.5-2 percent respectively," Bharat Ram said.

Even as the inflation rate is slated to rise to 5-6 per cent this year, theCII president felt that it can be comfortably managed if the growth hoversaround 7 per cent.

Realising bio-informatics can be a key growth area in the coming years, theapex chamber has decided to create a genomics and bio-informatics network.CII plans to give a major boost to the small and medium enterprises and willset up sub-contracting exchanges, an enterprise development fund and an ITnetwork. CII will impress upon venture capital funds and high net worthindividuals to create a dedicated fund for research and development whichwould largely benefit the small and medium enterprises.