Finance Minister Jaswant Singh will inaugurate the 19th India Economic Summit, jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and World Economic Forum, in New Delhi on Sunday.

Over 400 delegates from about 20 countries will participate in the three-day meet with its theme -- Enhancing India's Competitiveness: A must for growth.

This was announced at a news conference addressed by Colette Mathur, director, India and South Asia, WEF, and Sunil Kant Munjal, vice president of CII, on Thursday.

Mathur said: "India has become competitive in many ways, though there is a long way to go. Therefore, we wanted to focus on India's competitiveness. The theme is more relevant now than ever before."

She said there was a positive atmosphere in the world regarding business in India and the country has come up on the agenda of global business companies.

"In the past, we had difficulties in getting three-four multi-national companies to participate in our meet. But this time we have 15. This is a strong signal," she said.

Apart from global business leaders, top politicians and ministers will participate in the annual meet.

Jaswant Singh will speak on economic diplomacy. External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, Minister of Commerce and Industry Arun Jaitley and Law and Justice Minister Arun Shourie will also participate in the function.

Commerce ministry is supporting the summit.

Experts in academia and business have prepared four blue prints for the summit. These blue prints are on infrastructure, corporate social responsibility, information and communication technology sector, and agriculture.

The participants will discuss on these aspects among wide-ranging other topics. The recommendations will then be sent to the government for its implementation.

Last year, the summit had identified "six pillars" critical to India achieving 8 per cent growth. These were economic reforms, financial services, exports and FDI, geo-political, manufacturing and the energy sector.

CII vice president Munjal said India summits have proved to be a useful interface between Indian business groups and their international counterparts, and government of India and international political leaders.

In the end of the summit, there will be an informal interaction between the non-resident Indians and Indian business groups for improving the business environment in the country.

Separate sessions will focus on India's business relations with the United States, China and Sri Lanka. Mayor of Chicago will present a paper on how he improved his city.

Among the leading international participants are Carol Bellamy of Unicef; S. Mohammad Hossein Adeli, deputy minister of foreign affairs of Iran; Kobsak Chutikul, MP from Thailand; Keng-Yong, secretary general of ASEAN; Frank Pallone, Congressman from New Jersey; and Zhu Min, economic advisor to the president of Bank of China. 

The summit will also review the implementation of its earlier recommendations.