Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will embark on a 4-day visit to Australia on March 28, during which he will address a Make in India conference and meet CEOs of multinational companies.
"One of the main objectives of the finance minister's visit to Australia is to attract foreign investment in India, especially in infrastructure sector, among others," a finance ministry statement said.
On the first leg of his official visit in Sydney, the minister will have an interactive session at S P Jain School of Global Management and inaugurate the Sydney branch of Union Bank of India.
More From This Section
On March 30, Jaitley will address the 'Make in India' conference in Sydney and hold a session with prominent CEOs of Australia.
He will then have a bilateral meeting with Scott Morrison, MP, Treasurer, followed by an interaction with the Indian community.
In Canberra on March 31, the minister is slated to meet Senator Mathias Cormann, Minister for Finance, and Peter Vergese, Foreign Secretary.
He will also meet Vice-Chancellor of Australian National University (ANU) followed by an interaction with ANU Economists.
Jaitley will be participating in K R Narayanan Oration at the University and will later address the Indian community at a reception hosted by the High Commissioner of India in Australia.
On the last leg of the visit, Jaitley will arrive in Melbourne on April 1, 2016. During his stay there, he will have a meeting with Peter Coastello, Chairman, Future Fund.
The finance minister will also participate in 'Invest in India Round Table Conference' and attend an event where an MoU will be signed between FICCI and Australia-India Business Council. CEOs of various companies are slated to call on him.
Jaitley will visit the University of Melbourne and will meet Daniel Andrews, Premier of VIC.
The minister will be back in India on April 2.
"We also have our fair share of our policy diversions.
We are a functional and a reasonably noisy democracy. And therefore whereas the principal agenda really has to be to ensure the welfare of all, diversions do come up and some of them are extremely unpleasant diversions," Jaitley said.
The "maturity of Indian society" would be its ability to ignore these diversions and take us into a path where we can "ensure a harmonious relationship in the society and a growth process which benefits to us all", he said.
"The extent of maturity we display in marginalising these kind of policy diversions, would eventually determine the environment which we can create for a more prosperous India in which every segment of society gets its due," the Finance Minister added.
In his speech, Jaitley said that India is passing through a phase where growth levels have increased but added that there is potential to add to this.
"So we will have more resources, where there are gaps they can be used," he said, referring to providing support to minorities and backward sections.
Citing data, Jaitley said that there is a lot of diversity even among the conditions of different minority communities which also points to a link between educational and economic status.
He said a higher economic growth rate provides more resources to governments, which must use them for poverty alleviation and developmental schemes so it can lift those communities or groups to which progress has not reached.
Referring to data regarding various communities, he said "certainly there is a need, amongst minorites, amongst certain groups, Muslims in particular, that this advantage of the resource of the state, benefits them in more than one ways.