President A P J Abdul Kalam has called for an improvement in India's competitiveness to put it in the top ten in the world. He said that economic development of a country is powered by knowledge-based capabilities.

The president quoted from The global competitiveness report for 2005-06 and said that it ranked Switzerland at top spot, Singapore at the fifth, the US sixth, South Korea 24th, the UAE 32nd and India and China at the 43rd and China at 54th. "India's growth in competitiveness is yet to pick up. It should improve from 43 to at least 10 in a decade," he said.

Kalam was speaking at the inaugurating of an international symposium on automative technology. The seminar was organised by the society of automotive engineers in India at the Automotive Research Association of India's campus.

The president observed that besides knowledge factors that shape competitiveness are technology, innovation, resource investment, customer loyalty, quality and value of products, employee productivity, working environment and a creative leadership.

Creative leadership, the president observed, meant exercising the vision to change the traditional role from the commander to the coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect.

With several international companies entering automobile production in India, competitiveness has increased in production and marketing, Kalam noted.