Promising the fairest tax regime and a stable policy environment, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday invited U.S. businesses to take advantage of the huge investment opportunity in the infrastructure sector and raise bilateral trade to $ 500 billion.
The Minister said global financial turmoil was not a problem for the country as the savings on account of declining oil and other commodity prices have helped the government earmark more funds for the infrastructure sector and social sector schemes.
Mr. Jaitley was addressing the 11th Indo-US Economic Summit, which among others was attended by the US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma.
Stressing that the government has been able to deal with most of the legacy issues in taxation and put them to rest, Mr Jaitley said efforts have been made to evolve the “fairest” taxation regime, promote ease of doing business, speed up the pace of decision making and usher in a stable policy regime.
As far as improvement in ease of doing and ensuring a predictable taxation regime is concerned, the Finance Minister said “these are work in progress”.
On investment opportunities in India, Mr. Jaitley said: “There is a lot of space in the infrastructure sector... like roads, ports, railways and clean energy.”
He also expressed hope that the target of raising Indo-US bilateral trade to $ 500 billion from $ 100 billion currently would be achieved in the next few years.
Referring to the ongoing global financial turmoil in stock, currency and commodity markets, Mr Jaitley said it has made the task of policymakers difficult and “there is not an easy moment or a day”.
Mr. Verma, in his address, said the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the U.S. has created a lot of excitement in California. He will be the second Indian Prime Minister to visit California after Jawaharlal Nehru.
He said the visit of Mr. Modi would be instrumental in taking the bilateral ties between India and U.S to a new level.
Published - September 14, 2015 11:52 am IST
