Improvement In Monsoon Prediction Helps Economic Growth: FM

As monsoon prediction improves, Finance Minster Arun Jaitley seems to be quite bullish about Indian growth prospects during the current fiscal. He said that the monsoon prediction is improving and with it the prospects of the agriculture sector doing better, which would put the economic growth prospects on an even better footing. While inviting US industrial and business heavyweights to invest into India Jaitley said that present government is very receptive to investors’ issue and there is sustained improvement in the economic and investment conditions in the country.

At a business meeting orgainsed by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) along with US-India business council in California, FM stressed upon the consistent improvement in the manufacturing sector, as it has now bottomed out. In the matter of stalled projects Jaitley said; “Micro attention was being paid to stalled projects and a pick up in that area would be helping demand for industrial products. A benign inflation situation could further allow softening of interest rates.”

While inviting the top businessmen FM clearly mentioned that there is huge challenge in front of the government to make India industrial friendly destination. “Ease of doing business would need constant monitoring and improvement and eventually for growth to gain traction it was imperative that private sector investments picked up,” he marked at the meeting.

Clearing the air regarding policy bottlenecks and crucial bills pending in the parliament Rajiv Mehrishi, Finance Secretary, stressed that the government is working to create an organized way to deal with change not just in policy regime but administration as well. “Government efforts are “work in progress” though there is already significant progress on contentious issues like implementing a direct tax regime and GST regime, smoothening taxation disputes, easing land acquisition and labor regulations,” he added.

Some of the companies around the table included Microsoft, Applied Materials, Amazon, Oracle, Hewitt Packard, Visa, Franklin Templeton, Google, Cisco, First Solar, Aemetis , Ebay, Qualcomm, Blackberry, San Disk among others.