FinMin holds pre-Budget consultation with industry, trade representatives

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held her pre-Budget consultation today in New Delhi. She met representatives of agriculture & rural development earlier in the day. She also held a meeting with representatives of Industry & Trade Associations in the second half.

New Delhi:Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday started her pre-Budget consultations here with different stakeholder groups in connection with the forthcoming General Budget 2019-20.

After her first meeting with the stakeholder groups from agriculture and rural development sectors, Sitharaman met with representatives from industry, trade and services sectors in the second meeting.

In her opening remarks, Sitharaman said that the central government has taken several industry-specific initiatives since 2014 that had significantly improved the overall business environment, read a statement from the ministry.

She said that the emphasis was given to simplification and rationalization of the existing rules and introduction of Information Technology to make governance more efficient and effective.

As a result, the Finance Minister said that India has considerably improved its ranking to 77th position among 190 countries and has kept 23 ranks over its rank of 100 in the Doing Business Report 2018 as per the World Bank Doing Business (DB) Report, 2019, the statement from the ministry added.

Sitharaman also mentioned that since 24 percent of the total workforce in India is in the industrial sector, in order to reap the benefits of demographic dividend, the industry should be able to accommodate more workforce.

The meeting was also attended by other senior officials of the Ministry of Finance.

With a view to give boost to the Indian economy, the representatives of industry, services and trade sectors submitted several suggestions concerning industrial sector, land reforms, special economic zones, industrial policy, investment in research and development, simplification of tax regimes, tapping potential in tourism sector, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Goods and Services Tax (GST), Capital Gains Tax, Corporate Tax, MSME Sector, e-commerce, skill development, education and healthcare sectors, start-ups, media and entertainment sector and food manufacturing industry.