New Delhi: Banker Uday Kotak On Tuesday he called for reducing dependence on foreign capital and warned that rising oil prices were a “big shock”.“In the last two months, we have not seen the impact of the Middle East (West Asia) war in terms of energy price changes, it is coming and it is getting bigger. Consumers have not felt any pressure at all. Consider a consumer whose income is limited to what he can spend directly on fuel and indirectly on other goods. The shock is coming, we had old inventory, we had the capacity to be a shock absorber for the oil companies. This is a huge amount and you are not far from shock until the Iran war stops tomorrow morning,” he said at the CII annual meeting. The comments come amid rising expectations of a rise in fuel prices in the coming days due to huge under-recovery by oil retailers.

The Kotak Mahindra Bank founder and director also said India needs to reduce its dependence on foreign capital and focus on building a strong domestic pool of long-term risk capital to achieve true economic self-reliance. He said a truly self-reliant country is one that “doesn’t need to depend on anyone else’s money or power” and referred to PM Narendra Modi’s call to avoid destination weddings abroad and hold them in India.“India has financialized very quickly,” Kotak said. He said many companies are overly focused on quarterly earnings, stock prices and employee stock option benefits rather than building the business with a three- to five-year view. “I would strongly urge companies not to be overly focused on short-term stock price… but to think about building a company for three to five years.”Kotak said India has been heavily dependent on foreign portfolio investment for many years and domestic investors have started playing a bigger role in the capital markets only after the pandemic. The veteran banker also advocated strengthening the country’s domestic private equity, venture capital and alternative asset ecosystem, saying these institutions are essential for funding entrepreneurship and long-term economic growth.