Pre-budget 2013 expectations: Cadence

INDIA: According to Jaswinder S. Ahuja, corporate VP and MD, Cadence Design Systems: “Union Budget – 2013-14 is bringing with it a lot of expectations especially with a major surge in Indian economy.

"This year the focus of the budget should be around addressing the challenges and some critical issues in ever growing areas like infrastructure, agriculture and education in India. Currently India is in that phase where it is facing the most critical challenge of crossing the ‘double digit growth barrier’ while it is continually growing rapidly in the world economic picture.

"At such a crossroad, maintaining the balance between growth and inflation is the key point to achieve an all inclusive development. Last year has seen a tremendous revival of industry, mainly manufacturing but as per the latest report released by the Indian Semiconductor Association (ISA) in partnership with Frost and Sullivan, the Semiconductor industry is rising with the trend of domestic production going down. It forecasts total semiconductor market grows from $6.03 billion in 2011 to $9.7 billion by 2015.

"What we really do need is to boost the domestic industry and manufacturing and for that there are some essential issues related with government policies, tax exemptions and grants, which need to be addressed in the upcoming budget. The government needs to take steps towards reducing subsidy and other measures to increase revenue and curb expenditure.

"Liberalization of FDI policy for the manufacturing sector is also one of the mounting needs for the sector. Overall, the opportunities present at this point of time are far greater than what was available perhaps a year ago. So, with that note, we hope that this year’s budget would present bigger openings at the local level while meeting the fiscal deficit target.”