Govt has convinced public to support defence FDI: FM

WASHINGTON: The government has been able to change the public opinion in favour of FDI into sensitive areas like defence manufacturing which were earlier considered sacrosanct, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said.

Jaitley, who is in the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, said this during an investors roundtable New York jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Us-india Business Council.

"We have been able to invest FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in almost every sector of the economy," Jaitley said as he highlighted investment opportunities in India.

"Areas that were earlier considered sacrosanct, like defence manufacturing, we have been able to convince public opinion that it is better to invite foreign expertise to set up manufacturing in India," he said.

Jaitley, who was the defence minister till recently, said suddenly a lot of joint ventures are coming up for investment in the defence sector. He also said that the body which Foreign Investment Promotion Board which sanctioned FDI proposals had outlived its purpose because of liberalisation in FDI rules.

"Ninety-five per cent of FDI anyway comes in through the automatic route...i had spoken about doing away with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board," he said. WASHINGTON: India can become a much cleaner and bigger economy among the emerging economies as it has the capacity to implement bold decisions and scale them up efficiently, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

He also said that India has become one of the most open and globally integrated economies at a time when other economies are turning protectionist.

"All the steps including financial inclusion, demonetisation, the Goods and Services tax to the direct tax incentive, each one of this falls into place where brick by brick you lay down the structure in order to integrate an informal economy into a much larger formal economy," he said as he addressed American investors for the first time since the implementation of major reforms like the GST.

"I think amongst emerging economies India today has a potential for not only being a large market, but being a much cleaner economy a much bigger economy, which is now capable of taking and implementing these big ideas further," Jaitley said. He was addressing a New York audience at an event organised by Us-india Business Council in partnership with the Confederation of India Industries.