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Thursday August 20, 02:37 AM
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Source: Indian Express Finance
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FM meets FIs on investment climate
By fe Bureaus
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday met institutional investors foreign and domestic to seek their views on the current investment climate in the country.
FIIs are bullish on India but are seeking changes in some of tax laws on investments, finance secretary Ashok Chawla said on Wednesday.
"The idea was to get their perception on the investment climate for India and the difficulties, procedural hurdles that they face," Chawla said after the meeting.
The government has decided to set up a panel comprising officials from regulators to look into regulatory issues.
"What came through was that FIIs are bullish on India. They raised some issues on taxation, especially STT (securities transaction tax) and capital gains tax," Chawla said. The government has already unveiled a draft direct tax code that proposes to abolish STT and rationalize capital gains tax.
"We also discussed ways to strengthen secondary and bond markets," Chawla said. FIIs have invested $7.57 billion so far this year in India, compared with net sales of $11.97 billion in 2008.
