 "Narendra Modi")
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday promised more economic reforms and a stable tax regime so as to take manufacturing’s share in the gross domestic product to 25 per cent in the near future.
Addressing the Make in India event in Mumbai, Modi promised to make India’s tax regime more efficient and said his government was streamlining processes to ease investments.
“We are also simplifying processes like licences, security and environmental clearance. There is an all-round emphasis on ‘ease of doing business’,” Modi said.
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The Make in India Week began on Saturday with companies pledging investments worth up to Rs 80,000 crore led by the Anil Agarwal-owned Twinstar Display in a LCD unit in Maharashtra, Coca Cola and Jain Irrigation in a fruit juice plant, and Raymond’s in a textile unit.
While the Maharashtra government pegged Twinstar Display’s investment at Rs 20,000 crore, Agarwal said it would touch Rs 68,000 crore in five phases. In a separate statement, Swedish defence and security company Saab and the Bharat Forge group renewed their commitment to manufacture air defence solutions in India. More such MoUs are expected next week.
Modi said India was blessed with democracy, demography and demand, and to this his government had added deregulation. “We will not resort to retrospective taxation. We are making our tax regime transparent, stable and predictable,” he said.
The intent of the government to make investment easier comes in the backdrop of falling stock markets, rising non-performing assets of banks and falling factory output. The capacity utilisation of Indian manufacturing is at record low of 70 per cent.
Modi said changes were taking place at the state level too and there was healthy competition among states in attracting investment. In all, 17 state governments are participating in the event. Some of the top CEOs from India and abroad, including Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry and Cisco's John Chambers, attended the inaugural ceremony on Saturday.
Minister of State for Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also made separate pitches to investors. Prime Minister of Sweden Stefan Löfven also promised to help India in sourcing investment.
Luminaries from business and industry included Ratan Tata, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Y C Deveshwar, Adi Godrej, Ajay Piramal, Baba Kalyani and Chanda Kochhar were also present.
Modi said his advice to industrialists was not to wait to make investment decisions. “There are immense opportunities in India. In the manufacturing sector, we have taken decisive steps to simplify processes and rationalise provisions. This includes licensing, cross-border trade, security and environmental clearances. We have announced attractive schemes in several sectors, including electronics and textiles,” he said.
In a bilateral meeting between Finland Prime Minister Juha Sipila and Modi, several initiatives such as ease of doing business, clarity and predictability in policies were discussed. Finnish company Nokia is facing a tax demand of nearly Rs 2,000 crore from Indian revenue authorities, and the matter is in court.
India has become the fastest growing large economy in the world and it will end this fiscal year with well over 7 per cent growth.
Modi invited investments in next generation infrastructure like roads, ports, railways, airports, telecom, digital networks and clean energy. “We have speeded up processes. The result is faster turnaround of projects. India’s highest ever kilometres of new highway contracts awarded was in 2015,” Modi said.
