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The Indian economy is passing through difficult times but business perception in the country is worse than reality, Naina Lal Kidwai, senior vice president of industry association, FICCI, said Thursday.

"Everything is not bad. There are a lot of good things also taking place, but bad things catch attention. Perception and reality are different," Kidwai told reporters on the sidelines of the 5th FICCI Global Skills Summit here.

Business perception in India has been affected over the last two years largely due to slowing growth and a series of corruption scandals.

Kidwai said the government had done good work in some sectors like education, skills and rural development, but overall perception is worse than the reality.

She pointed out that the government has set an ambitious target of providing vocational training to 500 million people by 2022.

"Private sector is also playing a very significant role in skills development," she said.

Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day Global Skills Summit, Kidwai emphasised on the need for speeding up the process of skill development.

"The importance of skills has to be realised before the implications of it on our economy become starker. India Inc needs to reach out to the teeming millions," she said.

"The economic implications in terms of the opportunity cost of not training the swelling workforce timely will be very high," said Kidwai, who is also the country head of HSBC in India.

She said the lack of a skilled workforce might slow down productivity and research and development, and ultimately lead to a reduced international market share.