Investors’ message to finance minister: ‘stable policy regime’ a must.
AB Wire
WASHINGTON, DC: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said his meetings with international investors in New York and Washington in the past four days provided him with an opportunity to explain to them that “we are clear about the right direction in which we are moving” and that in an “otherwise troubled times of the global economy, India is clearly a bright spot.”
Talking to reporters in Washington on Saturday, his second day in the US capital, the minister also said he carries back a clear message from the international investors that they need “a stable policy regime” and “any form of unpredictability is never investment-friendly.”
His meetings with investors were a two-way process, Jaitley said. “It was an opportunity for us to explain what has happened in the last one year in terms of our reform program and all that is in the pipeline.”
He said he told the investors that the government “is fairly determined to continue the [reform] process… so that it can give a further boost to our economy.”
Jaitley said India is targeting an 8 percent growth rate, which he termed as “reasonably impressive” under the current global economic climate.
Touting the progress made by the economy under his watch, the finance minister said “there has been a macro-economic stability,” which was achieved because of consolidated fiscal discipline. “The continuing reform program has restored the credibility of the economy,” he added.
Jaitley said the government has taken “several game-changing steps” in the past one year. “We have [further] opened up [the economy], we have made several structural changes,” he said. “The recommendations of the Finance Commission, which we are implementing, have created a huge amount of decentralized potential.”
The minister pointed out a number of accomplishments of the government, such as taxation reform, subsidy rationalization, and “transparency in governmental functioning, particularly in areas of allocation of resources.”
Jaitley said the “principal purpose” of his three-city US visit was to “interact at two levels: one with the concerned people in the US administration and the second with the general body of investors.”
Among the administration officials he met in Washington include Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and US Trade Representative Michael Froman.
Responding to a question, the finance minister said recent US actions against Indian IT powerhouses over alleged H-1B and L1 visa violations did not come up during his talks with US officials.
Jaitley arrived in Washington on Friday afternoon, after spending three days in New York.
He will be in San Francisco from June 21 to 24.
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The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) the control over 25% of the global land mass, 40% of the population and a combined GDP of $24 trillion.
Among BRICS nations India has the brightest future since Brazil is suffering from Inflation, Russia from isolation, China from pollution and an impending real estate bubble (GDP projected at 4% by the IMF) and South Africa has a long way to go. Indian GDP is projected at 8% surpassing even the US economy with GDP pegged at 3%.
The current FM, is the most astute of any FM’s India has endured and there is no looking back to the criminal enterprise that was Congress.