FM meets US Inc : Chidambaram offers fair treatment for foreign investors

Asks American Industry to set up factories in India

Washington (PTI): Seeking US investment in manufacturing in India, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said the government was committed to ensuring a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory environment for foreign investors. The Minister, who is on a visit to the US to sell India's growth story and attract investments, met CEOs and top management officials of a number of American companies with substantial investments in India.

"It is in the mutual interest of both countries for India to become a large manufacturing economy," he said during his interaction with captains of American industry. Discussions with business leaders including from Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and ILFC focused on the current business and investment environment in India. In his meeting with the Senator Max Baucus, Chidambaram stated that while some concerns have been expressed about the current business environment in India, the policies adopted by the Government are "pro-growth and WTO compliant".

He stressed that New Delhi is committed to ensure a transparent, fair and non-discriminatory investment environment for foreign investors seeking to do business in India. The Finance Minister also underscored Indian concerns about the provisions in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill relating to skilled non-immigrant visas. He also met with the Chairman of US Ex-Im Bank, Fred Hochberg and other senior officials.

Chidambaram who is here to attend the annual leadership summit of the US-India Business Council, will also meet his American counterpart Jack Lew. CEOs and business leaders of American companies raised the issues of transfer pricing and other matters. Chidambaram also apprised the executives of the recommendations of the Arvind Mayaram Committee on enhancing FDI caps in many sectors, and the steps being taken to implement them. The Mayaram committee has favoured higher sectoral caps in almost all sectors including defence, multi-brand retail and telecom.

Chidambaram's US visit comes at a time when rupee has taken a beating and had touched an all-time low of 61.21 to a dollar early this week. The huge outflow of foreign funds to the tune of $7 billion alone in June following concerns over tapering of bond purchases by the US government is putting pressure on rupee.

Inflation, CAD still high: RBI

Indore (Agencies): Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said on Thursday that inflation remained still high, while also saying curbing inflation remained the central bank's most important task. Subbarao added that RBI has been able to curtail inflation to some extent in the last two years. The central bank will aim to keep inflation low, while supporting growth, he said.

On rupee volatility, the RBI chief said it would difficult to predict when the Indian currency would reverse decline, and blamed global factors for the currency depreciation during the past one week. It also difficult to say how long the external problems affecting the rupee would persist, he said, pointing out that current account also deficit continued to remain high.

The currency has fallen almost 9 per cent against the US dollar in the past three months and touched an all-time low July 8. He further said the apex bank will take into account developments in inflation, growth as well as the external situation while formulating its monetary policy review due on July 30.