Jaitley to embark on 10-day US visit from Tuesday

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will leave here on Tuesday on a 10-day US visit during which he will meet US Secretary of Treasury Jacob Lew, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and US industry leaders.

An official source here told IANS that Jaitley's US itinerary during the visit, ending on June 25, embraces New York, Washington and San Francisco cities.

In the US capital Washinton, the finance minister is slated to meet the US treasury secretary and in San Francisco he will hold a round-table with the US-India Business Council.

While in New York, Jaitley will interact with the officials of the New York Stock Exchange, meet FIIs and address students of two institutes, the source said.

India has received $1.82 billion in foreign direct investment from the US in 2014-15.

Having opened up several sectors to foreign investment, India has been projecting itself as a favourable destination for attracting foreign funds.

The government has relaxed FDI norms in various sectors, including insurance, railways and medical devices.

In various public fora periodically, Jaitley has been assuring investors of a non-adversarial tax regime, saying the government has no intention of taxing firms retrospectively and will make it easier to do business in India.

The most recent promising news in this regard came on Friday when official data showed that the country's factory output for April showed sharp rise of 4.1 percent, from 2.1 percent reported for the previous month.