Kicking off his second visit to the US in one year with a meeting with eight of the top 10 financial entities in the US, including JP Morgan and Blackstone, Modi outlined efforts made during the last 15 months to increase investment in key areas like infrastructure. He outlined the government’s reform agenda as well as improving economic <g data-gr-id="46">climate </g>and said: “Any bottleneck which should not be there, will not be there.”
The GDP growth last year was 7.3 per cent – among the highest in large economies world over, he said. Also, there has been a 40 per cent jump in foreign direct investment (FDI).
World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Moody’s say the economic climate is bound to improve further, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup quoted the Prime Minister as telling the one-hour-long roundtable. CEOs, he said, shared their concerns as well as experiences of doing business in India.
The Prime Minister “took on board” suggestions made by the executives as he outlined the sheer scale of development that will happen in India and the “tremendous opportunities” it offers to foreign institutional investors and for FDI.
Swarup said the Prime Minister assured the investors that “work is already underway” to resolve concerns of doing business and investing in India.
Swarup said some of the concerns raised by investors are that there is still some bureaucracy left, deregulation has not been as fast as they had expected. On the REIT side, they had some concerns about taxation policies, bankruptcy laws and deregulation and wanted faster pace of infrastructure development.
He added that these were not new issues and the Prime Minister is fully aware of them. Modi has asked the CEOs to give him a detailed note on all the points and concerns raised by them. “Prime Minister Modi appreciated the fact that they had aired these issues and he was very committed to working to resolve them,” Swarup said.
He said the companies manage billions of dollars and most of them have exposure to India. “This was a very good opportunity for the Prime Minister to listen to their experience of dong business in India, see what concerns they have and how we could work to remove those,” he said.
Swarup added that the CEOs voiced their appreciation over the steps taken by the government on ease of doing business, economic growth and reforms and “were very bullish on India.” On concerns over land acquisition, Swarup said the Prime Minister has set a target of constructing 30km roads per day, increasing it from the current 13km. This, he said, will be possible only when there is land available and “we are trying to get political consensus on the issue.”
The CEOs noted that India has a lot of potential for investment and acknowledged that financial market reforms have already started and more reforms would happen in the days to come.
PM Modi to meet Obama, leaders of other nations
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet US President Barack Obama and top leaders of a dozen other countries during his stay in the American city over the next several days, officials said. In his meeting with Obama – the third bilateral between the two leaders in about on <g data-gr-id="65">eyear</g> – the Prime Minister will discuss bilateral, regional and global issues and decisions taken by the two governments during the recently concluded inaugural Strategic and Commercial Dialogue in Washington DC. “They (Modi and Obama) will discuss a range of bilateral, regional and global issues. <g data-gr-id="68">Economic</g> engagement will certainly be a part of things being discussed,” Indian Ambassador to the US Arun K Singh told reporters. “There would be discussion also on the political, bilateral, regional and global issues," he said.