Expressing hope that the country will be able to improve its growth this year from the 7.6 percent achieved last fiscal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that India has its 'hands full' in bringing about structural changes and implementing key reforms to boost economic growth.
The minister said that the country still requires a lot of structural changes and the government has taken steps to ease processes, make the business environment easier and bring in greater transparency into the system. Highlighting various initiatives, Jaitley said that the government has also changed arbitration laws, amended some of the 'onerous provisions' of the Companies Act and will bring down corporate tax to 25 percent over the next couple of years. He further expressed hope that the bankruptcy law would be approved over the next few weeks and that the government 'is in the final stages' of passing a law that deals with commercial indebtedness.
In addition to this, he said that the two significant directions which he has followed are increased expenditure in infrastructure and in rural India. These are the two areas which were lacking and these appear to be the focus area and will probably be the direction of the economy in the next few years. On indirect taxes, he said India is in the 'last stages' before the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is approved.