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At the launch of the Economic Freedom 2007 report
Mr. Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry,
India said: "freedom, equality and justice
are core to our constitution. But freedom in equality
cannot be absolute. It is justice which limits freedom.
I congratulate Fraser Institute for publishing this
well presented report. No one in India is going
to accept inequitable growth. We need sustainable
freedom which is broadly accepted by people. All
these studies and reports help us in government
to provide sustainable freedom."
 At
the same event Mark Mullins of Fraser Institute,
Canada shared data showing India's performance on
various indicators in relations to big economies
and her neighbouts. He highlighted that, "India
has achieved the world average index and performed
better than its neighbours. The area of Banking,
Capital and Labour sectors once liberalised will
help India achieve better results on the economic
freedom index, which is correlated with economic
growth."
Parth J Shah of Centre for Civil Society hopes
to see India improve its score commenting that,
"India's global ranking has declined from
60 in 2004 to 69 in 2005, even though her score
on a ten point scale has improved from 6.5 to 6.6.
Despite a slight improvement in the overall economic
freedom, India's world ranking has fallen. This
shows that the other countries have improved their
economic freedom more than India has. This is the
price of complacency that we are paying. We must
forthwith march forward on the path of liberalisation
that has made us the envy of the world. Further
delays would lead to even further decline."
Lord Meghnad Desai from the London School of Economics
reflected that "People look at freedom as a
complex multidimensional aspect. There are people
within the Indian system with the capacity to change.
Socialists of yesteryears are carrying out the reforms
now."
According to Friedrich Naumann Foundation's
Hubertus von Welck: "People can not be left
to rely on aid and welfare from their governments,
but should be given the room and opportunity to
create and build their wealth. Governments can facilitate
this by providing skills and a climate that is susceptible
to entrepreneurship, adopting policies that guaranties
economic freedom to people".
The ranking and scores of the 141 countries including
India, China, USA, Germany, Thailand, Vietnam, HongKong,
and Singapore are available in the Economic
Freedom of the World 2007 report.
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