GE bullish on India, says not worried about global slowdown

US conglomerate GE sees enough business opporunities around the world, despite the stark headlines underlining a global slowdown that seems to be under way, says Vice Chairman John Rice.Rice was speaking to CNBC-TV18's Menaka Doshi from the sidelines of World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, where he said the company was positive on expanding its business footprint in India.He added that he had confidence in the economic team put together by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that he hoped it would help lead to ease of doing business in the country.Below is the verbatim transcript the interview..Q: What is the business outlook in light of the economic disturbances we have seen of late?A: There is certainly a lot of discussion about the price of oil and whether it stays low or it starts to come back at some point, volatile currency markets and equity markets and all of that but if you look under the covers, if you get beneath the headlines in our businesses which are concentrated now around technology, infrastructure we still see lots of opportunities for growth. Harder to get the deals done, we have to arrange financing and support that. So, it is a different play than it might have been two or three years ago when the rising tide was lifting all the boats but still a lot of opportunities.Q: How much impact is this lower crude oil price situation having on the oil and gas business? I was just speaking with the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) earlier today and he spoke off a big drop off in the oil and gas sector exploration and production across the world.A: Yes, there is no question capital expenditure (capex) in the oil and gas industry is down. That affects our oil and gas business. It is just one of GE's pieces. So, this is a good time to be a little diversified but it also puts a premium on something that we have really been focussing on last few years and that is shifting from capex to operating expense (opex) and productivity. So, when you can deliver productivity for your oil and gas customers lower the cost of extracting a barrel of oil and MMBTU of gas then you are still going to have opportunities to sell because in the existing investments that these companies have they still need to make them more productive. They are not going to shut them all down but they need to be able to make money in a USD 30/barrel world.Q: You have been through dramatic transformation process as GE over the last few years, one that is underway even as we speak. You have sold assets worth over USD 100 billion in just the last year itself. Can you talk us through what GE of the next 10 years is going to look like?A: Really two very big changes that got us to where are today. One is recognition that the world for a long time is going to need technology based infrastructure. The second thing you just alluded to is our move away from financial services. We live in a world that does not appreciate or value the combination of financial services with industrial businesses.Q: Most people are suggesting that low growth is the new norm, that two or three percent global growth is all that we are going to get really for the foreseeable furore. How difficult is that? When you talk about business across the world what are they expecting in terms of such low growth numbers, consumer demand, how are they coping with this?A: First of all you have to be real about what the world is going to give you and that is what Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does. So, a country's GDP or global GDP that is the tie that rises, in some countries it is not rising right now, but generally the global GDP rates are around three percent. In the emerging markets little bit more than three percent but that is about half of what it was and there is a strong correlation between emerging market growth rate and commodity prices. So, it is understandable. We can't resist it, we have to operate in that environment without eyes open, paying close attention to how we add value to our customer.Q: You all have been India for very long and you have been very bullish more recently about the prospects for the Indian economy. How do you measure the progress, whether it is the order book on the railway side, defence side or the nuclear power side. Are things moving at the pace that you hope they would?A: They are starting to. Definitely we feel good about the new government, the Prime Minister, the team that he has assembled, I have been travelling to India for over 20 years and it is a very competent group of people. They have got hard work to do. Make in India is an important initiative, we and other companies need to be part of it. It needs to be seen to full fruition if you will. The frictional cost of doing business in India, when you move things around between the states, the paper work, the taxes all too complicated, much more complicated than they should be. This is the team that can get at a lot of that.Q: Amongst the many sectors that you all are working in, in India which look most promising if it is easy to identify. Where do you think that the order book is going to fill up faster, because all of these the ministers and the government is speaking very proactively about it, but I am not sure that the movement on the ground, especially in infrastructure has been that good?A: We think power generation if there is the right market prices, so investors need signals. They need signals that they are going to be able to invest and get a reasonable risk adjusted returns. So, you have lots of capital that today is still sitting outside of India waiting to invest in the energy space if they get the right signals.Q: Both traditional and renewable?A: Traditional and renewable and renewable there is a tremendous amount of interest in renewables in India. The thing about renewables is you have got to have land and figuring out where it comes from, how to put it together, getting the permits, figuring out who owns it and how they sell it, it is all far more complicated that it should be.Q: Just power is the most promising sector because in power we are still waiting for discom reform to take place and that hasn't happened as yet, the distribution companies. The government is working on it but it hasn't happened.A: It is not just power. It is aviation, it is healthcare. We have seen some good growth in our healthcare businesses. As we develop technologies that allow you to take healthcare to places that don't have it. So, this is where the GDP growth will give you so much but if you are not developing technologies in India that let you go into a rural or remote setting with lower cost, more versatile capabilities you probably won't sell a lot more. But we have been able to figure out how to do that. We use our engineers in Bangalore to look at the market and design solutions that are for the Indian market. Then we can take it to the other countries elsewhere in the world.