Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Emphasizing India’s relentless growth potential, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Saturday invited Indian-Americans and diaspora elsewhere to invest in India’s stock market, bond market, and other financial instruments.
Virtually interacting with the Indian-Americans, three days ahead of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting the full Budget for 2024-25 on July 23, he appealed to the diaspora to help promote the country as a preferred investment destination, highlighting the vast opportunities available in various sectors.
Goyal said the government has taken several measures to attract investments, including promoting ease of doing business, reducing compliance burden, opening sectors like space, and encouraging foreign direct investments (FDIs).
He also urged the diaspora to participate in making India a developed nation by 2047, the media reported.
“Help promote Brand India as a premium investment destination. Investing in India has tremendous growth potential and we saw NRI deposits (increasing to) USD 3 billion between April and May, and that is four times what it was last year.
“I am sure many of you would be looking at investments in the Indian stock market, bond market, banking systems, fixed deposits, depending on your appetite for risks,” he said.
India provides huge opportunities for businesses in the future although the US is attractive at present for investors because of high interest rates, he said.
“I would invite you to invest in India, whose growth story will continue unfettered at a scorching pace. India would continue to lead the world economy and will be the most favored destination for investment, and manufacturing,” Goyal said.
On clean energy, he said that India has the world’s largest renewable energy program of 500 GW.
“We already have 200 GW and we are ramping it up and maybe on (next) Tuesday’s budget, let us wait and watch what further initiatives in these directions of sustainability are brought,” he said.
Replying to a question about social media confusion during the general election, Goyal, who won his first Lok Sabha poll from Mumbai, said “We have lessons to learn as every election teaches a lot of new things.”
“I can assure you that we are all working to understand evolving dynamics, what changed, what we need to focus on. After an election, there is always a period when anybody who has performed better than expected does have a little more arrogance and somebody who has performed less than expected does take time to introspect and course correction.”
“So, I think it’s too early to provide the solution and talk of the solutions, but I can assure you that nobody here is resting one minute of the day. We are all focused,” he added.
Replying to a question on judicial reforms, the minister said that it is a delicate subject.
“Everybody who becomes a judge talks of judicial reforms but resists any reforms. So it’s a conundrum that we have to break. I am fairly confident that it’s an idea whose time has come and we will see this sector also undergoing reform particularly to reduce the pendency of cases and the long duration to get justice,” he added.