PM Modi to chair global investor meet today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair an 'exclusive' dialogue with global investors at a Virtual Global Investor Roundtable (VGIR) on Thursday and will speak about India's reforms and opportunities for investors. VGIR 2020 will focus on discussions around India's economic and investment outlook, structural reforms and the government's vision for the path to a USD 5 trillion economy.

New Delhi:To attract investment into the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday chair the Virtual Global Investor Roundtable (VGIR) 2020, which will be attended by the heads of 20 top institutional investors from various parts of the world.

VGIR 2020 will focus on discussions around India's economic and investment outlook, structural reforms and the government's vision for making the country a USD 5-trillion economy.

"All the major global investors, including sovereign wealth funds and pension funds of the world, would be participating. We have confirmation from such investors who would be participating in this virtual conference," Economic Affairs Secretary Tarun Bajaj said while sharing details of the event.

He added that as a matter of fact, assets under management for these funds would be more than USD 6 trillion.

The Indian side at the roundtable will be represented by business leaders, financial market regulators, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.

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The global institutional investors, representing key regions including the US, Europe, Canada, South Korea, Japan, the Middle East, Australia and Singapore, will participate in VGIR 2020, and some of these investors would engage with the government for the first time.

Some of the prominent funds participating in the event are Temasek, AustralianSuper, CDPQ, CPP Investments, GIC, Future Fund, Japan Post Bank, and Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

They also include Korean Investment Corporation, Nippon Life, Mubadala Investment Company, Ontario Teachers, Teachers Retirement Texas and Pension Denmark.

Apart from this, there will be six major Indian industrialists -- Deepak Parekh (HDFC), Dilip Shanghvi (Sun Pharma), Mukesh Ambani (RIL), Nadan Nilekani (Infosys), Ratan Tata (Tata Group) and Uday Kotak (Kotak Mahindra Bank) to share their experience.

"The whole idea of this conference is...to give them (investors) information about various investment opportunities in India, the present economic situation in India and what opportunities they have," he said.

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The event will provide an opportunity to leading global investors and Indian business leaders to engage and deliberate with senior policy makers on how to further accelerate the growth of international investments in India, he added.

"If they have any concerns, we would also take care of those concerns and try and answer them. I would also like to tell you that we have been interacting with these funds for the past five-six months. We have undertaken a lot of activities on the basis of our interactions with them," Bajaj said.

Based on past interactions, the government has done away with dividend distribution tax and extended tax exemption to sovereign wealth funds and pension funds with certain conditions.

VGIR 2020 will also provide an occasion for all stakeholders to further cement the strong partnerships that have been built and foster engagement with international institutional investors who are looking to increase their Indian investments.

Foreign investments in India this fiscal at USD 35.7 billion was the highest-ever for the first five months of a financial year, recording a growth of 13 per cent over the same period a year ago.

(PTI report)