Government receptive to investors’ issues: Jaitley

The Dollar Business Bureau Industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with US-India Business Council (USIBC) hosted Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance for a high level luncheon meeting with top US multinationals on  June 22 in San Francisco. Companies such as Microsoft, Applied Materials, Amazon, Oracle, Hewitt, Visa, Google, Cisco and Blackberry among others were present for the meeting. Jaitley while highlighting the improved economic and investment conditions in India mentioned that the improvement in monsoon prediction and prospects of the agriculture sector doing better would further scale up economic growth prospects. He also spoke about the manufacturing sector having a better run now after a long period of slowdown. He also highlighted that micro attention is being paid to stalled projects. A benign inflation could further allow softening of interest rates, Jaitley said. Naushad Forbes, President Designate, CII emphasized how India and US are natural partners due to the common principles of federalism and democracy. “India is a noisy and vibrant democracy that has an innovative private sector as its growth engine. India today presents a strong long-term growth story while aiming for inclusive and sustainable growth.” Hailing India as the shining star within the developing economies Mukesh Aghi, President, USIBC spoke of the positivity surrounding the new Indian government’s economic policy that has an underlying social developmental agenda. Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi while responding to questions from US companies said that the government is working on creating an organized way to deal with changes in policy regime as well as administration. “Government efforts are ‘work in progress’ though there is already significant progress on contentious issues such as implementing a direct tax regime and GST regime, smoothening taxation disputes, easing land acquisition and labour regulations and so forth. All these reforms would help cultivate an environment for growth and development,” he said. The CII-USIBC roundtable kicked off the first major interface for the Finance Minister during his visit to California which will also include several interactions with long term investors, institutional investors as well as members of the Indian diaspora in the Silicon Valley.    

June 23, 2015 | 7:11 pm IST.