If something is simple, it's made complicated in India, says investor-turned-philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen , describing the complex bureaucratic environment and regulatory system in the country. The Paris-born billionaire investor's private investment company -Berggruen Holdings -has invested about $200 million in hotels under the Keys brand, car rental services called Car Club , real estate and education sector in India. Berggruen laments that some of his businesses in India haven't shaped up the way he had expected because of the regulatory hurdles and the `painful process' of setting up projects.On this visit to India, Berggruen is paving the way for his five-year old think-tank Berggruen Institute to work with the country. In an interview with ET's Divya Sathyanarayanan, Berggruen says he is open to investing in startups in India, but the focus is on putting his existing business on track. Edited excerpts.The business environment has to be more practical, much smoother and things have to flow. India still suffers from an incredibly complex environment and is very bureaucratic, unnecessarily so... Government should be a service organisation as opposed to a power organisation. It should help people, protect people, give opportunities; it should be an enabler. There is so much vibrancy in India, but I feel the bureaucratic environment -which the government controls -is really not an enabler. It needs to change for India to achieve its potential.If something is simple, it's made more complicated in India. The system doesn't seem to allow the simplicity. If you are trying to do something from the business standpoint, it is very frustrating. Let's take the hotel business, for instance. Your business should really be about bringing customers to the hotel and serving them and making sure they have a good experience. But here, that's only a part of it. A lot of it has to do with dealing with the bureaucracy . Building a hotel is difficult, getting permits to operate it is difficult -it is heavy in terms of bureaucracy. This doesn't help investors and customers. The result is that you have lot fewer hotel rooms in India per population than you have in almost any other place in the world that is at the same economic level as India.My impression is that he (Modi) is taking a fairly conservative approach. If you look at China today, President Xi is also taking a very conservative approach in terms of domestic politics, but that is to enable more liberalisation and shifting of the economy to a more modern economy for China.So, there is a reason for this and they have a decent chance of being successful because they have been successful in the past and they know how to transform ideas into action. We can't compare these two nations because China has an autocratic system and you have a democracy. But here you have so many ways to stop governance, so many vetoes within the system and I don't mean just political veto (s) from one party to the other, but you have so many points of control, permissions, etc., that you have a very sophisticated veto system as opposed to a permission system. And that really needs to be streamlined. Now is the time for his government to actually deliver. I know that investors are more enthusiastic in some ways, but it's the real economy that needs to feel it.The institute is active in the US, China and Europe and ultimately we have to be in India because it's significant culturally, politically and in terms of its incredible contribution to the world.Ultimately, we have to find the right people and institutes to engage within India. It will be a mixture of government people, politicians, scholars and academicians and people who are involved in institutes of learning. We are already starting to get Indians on board, but it's still too early.I would say, it is much slower than how I wish to develop these businesses. Even though we have had some success here, it takes a lot longer here than any other place. Moreover, I feel even longer -- than other places -- for the market to respond. It’s slower, not just because of bureaucracy but because there is such a long history of things taking time. I think there is an explosion in the online business, which makes sense to me. In an environment which is physically difficult to operate in, online capacity is very helpful. But you cannot just operate any online business without offline capacity. You need the virtual as well as the physical side. We are not virtual human beings.The trend of startups being successful in other places in the world such as the US, China and Europe has also come to India. So anybody -- who has an idea, is young and has the willingness to work hard today -- can raise capital on an idea. I think that’s good and healthy. Then the real question is, will India be successful or stumble? Will these companies become what people dream or will they be stifled by a bureaucracy and the slowness of getting things done? In terms of startups, especially in technology, I’m happy to co-invest with some of the good investors..I think they are inevitable. Even though they are disruptors, they also create a market, which is actually healthy. But it also means that traditional operators in hotels or car rental businesses have to adapt. Ola is much more mass market, while we (Car Club) can do things that are much more specialised where we add the value. In terms of what OYO does, they will enable small operators to reach customers. But business person who travels, will want to stay in a fairly predictable standard hotel. So I think there is a market for both. At the end of the day, it's important that the market itself grows and it will benefit everybody. In India, especially, which has been so slow on the physical side, I think to have some of these virtual operators make it easier to deal with the physical side of life.India is one place where you can never separate the regulatory from the realty. We have a number of different properties which have been waiting for permissions and so it makes the whole sector much less efficient than it should be. At the end of the day it hurts people who want to live in houses because there is less supply. So I would say, again it’s a frustrating environment. The financing market is still much too small in India. Permissions is everywhere, but here it’s very dependent on individuals and there are so many different layers which makes it much harder.Historically we have also bought a lot of healthy companies and grown them. I’m sure there are lot of opportunities here. At the end of the day, distressed opportunities are always interesting. You have to see if the fundamentals of the business is sound, if it is, then I think it is enormously interesting.You are right the agricultural sector is big in India. But it’s not so efficient. So my fear, before entering the sector will be the same issues we had with real estate. It’s very hard to get things done and in the agriculture sector it has to do with land and how you regulate it. Not enough financing would probably be a challenge to the sector. All this doesn’t mean it’s not a big sector. One of the reason why these online things are getting traction and money is because they deal in the digital/virtual world as opposed to physical world. There is less intermediaries and less permission. Once you are in the business, you don’t have to ask all the time. The virtual/ digital barriers are much less than the physical barriers and you don’t have to deal, it’s sad to thing to say since India is a country of people, with people in the virtual world than physical. Farming is very much a physical world.Sadly no. I have to spend more time in India and look at more art here. India has such a rich culture and there is so much happening here, I should look at adding Indian art to the collection.For me it’s much more personal. I don’t look at art as an investment, but it also happens to be a very good investment over time. You have to choose well. Art is not like an asset class. If you look at it as asset class, you end up not so happy. You have to invest with eyes. You cannot invest with your pocketbook in art. Art is about aesthetics at the end. Aesthetics and the money should come together.Money is like energy. If it’s dormant, it has no value and dies. So you could very well use it to make more productive investments. The question then is, besides making investment in productive assets, are there other areas where one can be useful. People can be charitable and make a difference. I would say that if you have a certain amount of assets or money, to share this with society - from a moral standpoint - is powerful. It’s this selfless side - which is charity - that can fill gaps, which a business or government can’t fill.