Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asserted that India will continue to introduce reforms including through the use of ordinances to make it easier for companies to do business in India. Highlighting the government’s commitment to improve the India’s ranking in global ease-of-doing business indices, the Minister stated that in cases where parliamentary approval would have taken time the government used the ordinance route to rapidly implement the changes. Since May 2014, the new government has introduced more than 40 changes to the rules of the Companies Act 2013. Nirmala Sitharaman is currently on the UK visit aimed at strengthening trade and investment ties between both countries.
Persuading global investors towards Indian growth story, Commerce Minister stressed that the government would not use retrospective taxation as a measure of revenue generation and the government is committed to simplifying the tax framework and will announce some more measures in forthcoming budget.
The UK is among the top ten countries that invest more in India. FDI during the April-November FY15 increased by 22% y-o-y to $18.88 billion from $15.45 billion recorded in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. The sectors that received highest inflows during the first eight months of current fiscal include telecommunications ($2.47 billion), services ($1.84 billion) automobile ($1.53 billion), pharmaceuticals ($1.15 billion) and computer software and hardware ($862 million).