November 4, 2020: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make a pitch to 20 leading global investors, heads of sovereign wealth funds and pension funds with total assets worth $6 trillion on Thursday, seeking long-term investments in India’s infrastructure sectors to make the country’s economic growth sustainable.
The Virtual Global Investor Roundtable (VGIR) will see participation from across the world, represented by top executives of GIC, Temasek, US International Development Finance Corp., Pension Denmark, Qatar Investment Authority, Japan Post Bank and Korea Investment Corp., among others. Six top Indian industrialists—Deepak Parekh, Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Mukesh Ambani, Dilip Shanghvi and Uday Kotak—will also share their experiences at the meet.
“Strong partnerships with international investors form a very important part of India’s strategy. Our commitment to create an investment-friendly ecosystem and enhance ease of doing business is unflinching,” Modi said in a statement.
Briefing reporters, economic affairs secretary Tarun Bajaj said VGIR will focus on discussions around India’s economic and investment outlook, structural reforms and the government’s vision for the path to a $5-trillion economy. “The event will provide an opportunity to leading global investors and Indian business leaders to engage and deliberate with senior policymakers on how to further accelerate the growth of international investments in India.”
Bajaj said finance ministry officials had been in touch with investors over the last six months and some of their concerns have already been addressed, including abolition of dividend distribution tax and income-tax exemption for sovereign wealth funds for investments in specific infrastructure sectors.
“Once the interaction is over, within next two weeks, the global investors will be provided one-to-one interaction opportunity with the prime minister where they can privately ask questions and listen to PM’s vision for India,” Bajaj said.
On the progress of India’s ₹102 trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline, Bajaj said many groups were formed to carry out sectoral as well as the finance sector reforms.
Quoting a host of economic lead indicators such as PMI manufacturing, power consumption, e-way bills, railway freight, daily toll collections, GST collections, FPI inflows and bank credit, Bajaj said the economic recovery was better than what was anticipated by a lot of economists.
Source: live mint
