Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian on Wednesday said that large corporates should set examples by making timely payments to micro, small and medium enterprises.

Speaking at 'Massmerize 2019 - Retail, FMCG & E-commerce Conference' organized by FICCI, Subramanian said it is imperative that the corporates should set-up benchmark with regards to honouring contracts of MSMEs and by making timely payments.

He also urged the Industry to capitalise on the measures announced by the government and RBI and start making the investments required to boost growth.

"Investment has to be long-term and corporates should focus on the long-run. The fundamentals of the economy are fundamentally as strong as before. This gives an immense opportunity for corporates to be able to benefit from consumption by doing the investments that is required to be able to put economy back on the 7% plus growth path to make the country a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25 and $10 trillion by 2032," CEA said.

In order to increase consumption, D Surbramanian emphasised that the corporates should also focus on the technology and big data.

He said that consumer data can be used to find the preference as well as predict timing of consumption thereby getting a holistic view for making investments much sharper.

Mr Sanjiv Mehta, Chair, FICCI FMCG Committee and Chairman and Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited, said, "Those who can re-imagine and impact the entire value chain are going to be the real gainers."

Mr Krish Iyer, Chair-FICCI Retail & Internal Trade Committee and CEO & President, Walmart India Pvt. Ltd said that the Indian retail is one of the fastest growing industries across the globe and is expected to cross USD 1 trillion by 2021.

"It is heartening to know that RBI and the government are working in tandem to address the challenges faced by the industry," added Mr Iyer.

Herjit S Bhalla, Co-Chair FICCI FMCG Committee and Managing Director, Hershey India welcomed the recent steps taken by the government to improve the retail sector.

He also highlighted the importance of using vernacular communications to engage with consumers. "It is important for companies to speak a language that consumers desire and understand," he said.

Raghav Rao, Co-Chair FICCI E-Commerce Committee and Vice President- Finance and CFO -Amazon Seller Services P. Ltd said that in order to achieve overall economic growth, it is important to partner with local or kirana stores as they have now become both adoptive and adaptive to new technology.