Virtual Global Investor Roundtable | 06 Nov 2020
Why in News
Recently, the Prime Minister has chaired the Virtual Global Investor Roundtable (VGIR), with an aim to attract investment into the country.
Key Points
- Virtual Global Investor Roundtable: It is an exclusive dialogue between leading global institutional investors, Indian business leaders and the highest decision-makers from the Government of India and Financial Market Regulators.
- Organised by: Ministry of Finance and the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).
- Focus for 2020: Discussions around India’s economic and investment outlook, structural reforms and the government’s vision for the path to a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024-25.
- Highlights:
- Aatmanirbhar Vision: It is a well-planned economic strategy that aims to use the capabilities of India’s businesses and skills of its workers to make India into a global manufacturing powerhouse.
- ESG Score: India has companies ranking high on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores.
- National Infrastructure Pipeline: Under it, India has an ambitious plan to invest USD 1.5 trillion in various social and economic infrastructure projects, aimed for faster economic growth and alleviation of poverty in the country.
- Initiatives Taken to Improve Manufacturing Potential and Ease of Doing Business:
- One Nation, One Tax system in the form of Goods and Services Tax (GST), one of the Lowest Corporate Tax rates and Faceless regime for Income Tax (IT) assessment and appeal.
- A new labour laws regime balancing the welfare of workers and ease of doing business for the employers and Production Linked Incentive schemes in specific sectors.
- Initiative Taken for the Development of the Financial Sector:
- Unified authority for the International Financial Services Centre, liberal Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regime, suitable policy regimes for investment vehicles like Infrastructure Investment Trust and Real Estate Investment Trust.
- Implementation of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), financial empowerment through Direct Benefit Transfer and fin-tech based payment systems like Ru-Pay cards and BHIM-UPI.
- The opportunity created by the National Education Policy 2020 in setting up campuses of foreign universities in India was also highlighted.
National Investment and Infrastructure Fund
- NIIF is a government-backed entity established to provide long-term capital to the country’s infrastructure sector.
- The Indian government has a 49% stake in NIIF with the rest held by foreign and domestic investors.
- With the Centre’s significant stake, NIIF is considered India’s quasi-sovereign wealth fund.
- It was set up in December 2015 as a Category-II Alternate Investment Fund.
- Across its three funds viz. Master Fund, Fund of Funds, and Strategic Opportunities Fund, it manages over USD 4.3 billion of capital.
- Its registered office is in New Delhi.