Jaitley to 'take India story forward' with Japanese investors

Eyeing investments from Asia's second-biggest economy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said his visit to Japan is aimed at taking India growth story forward with investors so as to make them invest in a host of sectors, including infrastructure.
"We already have over a thousand Japanese companies which have invested in India. (Japanese) Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe seeks to double it and therefore, I would be meeting individually as well as collectively a large number of investors," said Jaitley, who arrived here yesterday on a 6-day tour.
Apart from investors, the minister will meet Abe and other Japanese government officials.
"The whole idea is to take the India story forward with them," said Jaitley, who attended 'The Future of Asia' conference here today. He did not speak at the conference.

Stating that there are investors and companies that are keen to participate in the growth of Indian infrastructure, he said the SoftBank group is looking at one of the biggest investments in solar energy.
"They have made considerable headway already. They have identified the location and probably (it) will be one of the largest investments in those areas," he said.

Jaitley had met SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son here yesterday.
"I think similarly there are other Japanese investors who are open to the idea of having individual projects," he said. "We are open to the idea of them joining the India Infrastructure Investment Fund (NIIF) and this Indian flexibility provides them with more than one opportunity."

NIIF is being set up with a corpus of Rs 40,000 crore, partly funded by private investors, to finance infrastructure projects, including stalled ones.
The government and public sector entities will hold 49 per cent, with the rest offered to multilateral development banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other organisations.
NIIF will then buy shares in existing infrastructure lenders such as Rural Electrification Corporation and Power Finance Corporation, which will provide debt to selected projects.
While NIIF will have a quasi-sovereign status, external asset management companies will be in-charge of treasury operations. Boosting infrastructure investment by 1 per cent of GDP could add 3.4 million jobs.

Giving reasons for surge in revenue collections, Jaitley
said direct taxation is directly related to economic environment and economic activity, and expansion of economic activity can lead to higher income.
As far as indirect taxes are concerned, he said there has been modest increase in customs duty due to reduction in gold imports among other things.
"Service tax also relates to economic activities. Excise duty relates to larger manufacturing plus some part of it may relate to additional revenue measures which were taken earlier this year on account of certain excise duties," he said.
Till December 19, net increase in income tax collections has been 14.4 per cent and even after accounting for large refunds, the net rise in collection is 13.6 per cent, Jaitley had said.

Indirect tax collections soared 26.2 per cent between April 1 and November 30, with revenue from excise jumping 43.5 per cent, that from service tax by 25.7 per cent and customs by 5.6 per cent, he had said.