China Should Invest More As India Giving All Facilities

BEIJING: China should invest more in India especially in industrial corridors which are new growth centres with the government providing most of the facilities sought by Chinese firms, FICCI said.

"India has several industrial corridors being built in various parts of the country. All these are new growth centres and the bidding is taking place with internationally accepted regulations," FICCI Secretary General A Didar Singh told PTI.

"This is what they (China) wanted. Their teams conducted studies in India for three years. They asked for reserved parks," he said.

"There is no such thing as nomination in any of these corridors. However, within the areas of parks certain spaces can be allocated for different counties including Chinese," he said.

On China's decision to set up two industrial parks in Gujarat and Maharashtra with an investment of $ 20 billion, he said, "We see it as a beginning."

Asked why Chinese should make more investment in India, Singh said besides a large market, India offers lower level of labour costs.

"There is tremendous requirement for growth in the economy where job creation is the key. This is a unique opportunity in India because of its youthful population, which is providing tremendous opportunity for job creation," he said.

He said the Indian economy functions in an open transparent and democratic way and provides good platform for business to come and to gain from the investment.

On the reforms being carried out by Narendra Modi government, Singh said the single biggest reform the Indian industry is looking for at the moment is uniform GST (Goods and Services Tax).

"GST is the single biggest economic reform that should come in," he said, adding it would make the Indian market function as one entity.

"Business entities have been asking for uniform GST and we are getting it now. There is an assurance from the government. They will require a constitutional amendment. They have the wherewithal to do it," he said.

He said the second biggest reform industry wanted is a docile tax regime.

"The tax regime should not be aggressive. It should not be as Prime Minister Modi described once as tax terrorism," he said stating that there should not be a retrospective tax.

"Such things we expect not to happen," he said. He praised the reforms initiated by the new government so far.

"Consequent specific action by the government like 'Make in India' campaign, reforms in labour area, changes in overseas FDI in defence, railways and insurance are welcome. We look forward to next budget for more reforms," Singh said.

About the improvement in the domestic investment, he said it is yet to pick up.

"Foreign investment is only five per cent while 95 percent comes domestically. We have seen a distinct slowdown in the domestic investment in the last two years," he said.

"But at the same time FICCI's last two quarterly perception surveys showed positive outlook from the Indian companies as well as job creation," he said.

"It is a very positive sign. As we see the Indian economy improves we will begin to see more investment happening. But we don't see on the ground at least six to nine months when the new budget comes," he said.

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