In the biggest pitch yet to woo US investments, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today courted top financial sector CEOs to sell the India growth story, assuring them their concerns will be resolved and bottlenecks removed.
Kicking off his second visit to the US in one year with a meeting with eight of the top 10 financial entities in the US, including JP Morgan and Blackstone, Modi outlined efforts made during the last 15 months to increase investment in key areas like infrastructure.
He outlined the government's reform agenda as well as improving economic climate and said "any bottlenecks which should not be there, will not be there."
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The GDP growth last year was 7.3 per cent - among the highest in large economies world over, he said. Also, there has been a 40 per cent jump in foreign direct investment (FDI).
World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Moody's say the economic climate is bound to improve further, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup quoted the Prime Minister as telling the one-hour long roundtable.
CEOs, he said, shared their concerns as well as experiences of doing business in India.
The Prime Minister "took on board" suggestions made by the executives as he outlined the sheer scale of development that will happen in India and the "tremendous opportunities" it offers to foreign institutional investors and for FDI.
Swarup said the Prime Minister assured the investors that "work is already underway" to resolve concerns of doing business and investing in India.
"The Prime Minister spoke very candidly. He outlined his vision for India. He said any bottlenecks which should not be there will not be there," he said.
Swarup said some of the concerns raised by investors are that there is still some bureaucracy left, deregulation has not been as fast as they had expected. On the REIT side they had some concerns about taxation policies, bankruptcy laws and deregulation and wanted faster pace of infrastructure development.
He added that these were not new issues and the Prime Minister is fully aware of them.
Modi has asked the CEOs to give him a detailed note on all the points and concerns raised by them to examine in detail and respond.
