Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das has said that in order to attract overseas investment in the country, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon come out with a draft paper on liberalising external commercial borrowings (ECB) norms and said the norms would be relaxed keeping in view the overall external position and monetary stability, as it adds to the country's overall external debt and future repayment liability.
Das further said that the government is also planning to remove various conditionalities and restrictions to make the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy more progressive and make the country an attractive investment destination. Besides, he asserted that the next area government is looking at is with regard to FDI reforms... new sectors have been opened up and sectoral caps have been liberalized, but there is a lot more to do. The government has relaxed FDI policy norms in various sectors, including defence, insurance, construction, medical devices and railway. The government will continue to take policy initiatives without waiting for the 2016-17 Budget, he added.
Furthermore, he said that 'In terms of priority and direction of government policy in coming months and weeks, as we go to the Budget... it's not the case that the government will wait for the Budget. Policy initiatives are round the clock, a 24x7 exercise and it will continue. The government will initiate a series of reform measures from time to time,”.