Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday pitched India as an attractive investment destination, calling on global firms to take advantage of a raft of reforms undertaken by his government in critical areas ranging from corporate taxation to reduction in the corporate compliance burden.
He also pledged to do more to ensure even greater ease of doing business in India.Delivering a special address at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda through video conference, Modi also called for a global strategy on cryptocurrency, saying any one nation’s endeavour may not be enough to deal with technological and other issues emerging from it.
He also highlighted the urgent need for reforming various multilateral institutions, which were created in a different era, to enable them to successfully address 21st century challenges.Listing out a series of reforms undertaken in recent years, the Prime Minister said the corporate tax rate has been slashed (to just 15% for new manufacturing units), a retrospective tax amendment of 2012 has been junked and the requirement of about 25,000 compliances has been abolished to ensure ease of doing business.
Investments remain critical to India’s economic resurgence, as private consumption has been badly bruised by income losses in the Covid aftermath. Gross fixed capital formation grew 11% in the September quarter but it was aided by a conducive base (it was -8.6% a year before).
Defying Covid blues, foreign direct investment inflows in equity rose 4% year-on-year in the first half of the current fiscal to $31.2 billion even on a high base.
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