Investors urged to participate in Indian prosperity
The Indian Government is committed to increasing the public expenditure on infrastructure and creating environment for private participation in infrastructure to boost employment and provide impetus to overall economic growth, stressed Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Addressing business community in Singapore during his 15-16 Nov 2017 visit, he called on investors to participate in India’s massive development programmes and help change the country’s landscape.
Jaitley assured the investors of economic prospects, pointing out the temporary economic blip caused by “ambitious structural changes” was over.
“I think the bottoming out of the economy is complete and now it should start moving upwards. The global economy is also moving up.”
There was a temporary blip as a result of structural changes that have taken place, he said of the massive economic reforms undertaken by India. These included the demonetization of currencies from 8 Nov 2016 and the introduction of Goods and Services Tax from 1 July 2017.
“How do I see the economy moving? our basic parametres are quite stable. And we grew between 7-8 per cent over the last three years,” he said.
“Therefore, we need over the next, at least, a decade, if not more, significantly higher growth rates in order to go ahead with expansion plan of the Indian economy,” said Jaitley.
The Finance Minister also assured investors of a strong banking sector in India.
“The combination of the IT scheme and now the large-scale recapitalization we have announced should be put into motion expeditiously,” Jaitley told investors at the Morgan Stanley conference themed ‘India: Structural Reforms and Growth Path Ahead.
Jaitley, who is also the Corporate Affairs Minister, had addressed some 5,000 delegates at the Singapore Fintech Festival on 15 Nov 2017.
He also called on Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on 16 Nov 2017.
Both the leaders recalled the shared history of both the countries, rooted in strong commercial, culture and people-to-people links.
They also discussed the meeting between the two Prime Ministers and elevation of India-Singapore Partnership to a strategic level and actions taken to translate their vision.
Both the leaders discussed at length the roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), issues of common interest, such as bilateral trade and investment, and measures to increase the engagements in these areas and the further road map for enhancing India-Singapore Economic and Commercial ties.
The Finance Minister also met Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat.
Among others, he discussed investment opportunities with the Singapore’s group Temasek which is one of the largest investment companies in Asia. fii-news.com
