Policy

Residency Requirement Norms Diluted Lok Sabha has passed the Union Budget for 2013-14 where the amendments to the Tax Residency Certificates (TRC) has made it clear that the tax authorities would not go beyond TRC if an investor came via countries like Mauritius. For other countries with which India has a double taxation avoidance agreement, other documents could be asked to prove ownershi...

Finance Minister Woos FDI Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram, is courting foreign investors especially in the financial sector area, reports said. The plan is to showcase India as an important investment destination by providing the economic fundamentals to foreign investors. The Minister was recently in Japan and has pointed out that India was in a position to absorb foreign direct investm...

FII Investment Norms Simplified In a bid to contain the current account deficit and initiating the much-needed reforms the government of India has decided to merge the existing sub-limits for foreign institutional investors (FII) in debt instruments, reports said. As per the change to be operational from April 1, 2013, the overall caps would be for only two broad categories - government secur...

India's Growth Will Accelerate: World Bank The World Bank has said that India will go back to the growth trajectory and will clock a gross domestic product growth of 6 per cent for the fiscal year of April-March 2013-14, reports said. This growth is expected to accelerate even further in the coming years on the back of a global recovery the bank was quoted as saying. The World Banks said ...

FM Presents Balanced Budget Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram has presented a Union Budget for fiscal year 2013-14 that balances fiscal prudence with the country's aspirations for an inclusive and sustainable growth, reports said. The finance minister has introduced some specific changes in his budget speech for non-residents. These include; extending last year's reduction in rate of tax ...

2012-13 Growth Pegged At 5.5% The Finance ministry has pegged the final growth estimate for 2012-13 at 5.5 per cent, reports said. This is half per cent higher than what has been predicted by the Central Statistical Organization in India. The Finance Ministry's prediction is based on several indicators like the Purchasing managers Index (Manufacturing) which has started moving up since Octo...

RBI Lowers Lending Rate The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) surprised markets by lowering its lending rate to the banks, called the repo rate, by 25 basis points and brought it to 7.75 per cent and also injected liquidity into the economy by reducing the cash reserve ratio (CRR) held by banks by 25 basis points as well to bring it to four per cent, reports said. CRR is the minimum money to be kep...

GAAR Deferred The Union Finance Ministry has provided a breather to foreign investors by deferring the controversial General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR). This is expected to benefit many investments, which will be coming from Mauritius. The Rules have been deferred by two years and would be made effective from the 2016-17-assessment year, reports said. The ministry has said hat GAART would ...

Growth Projected At Below 6% The Union Finance Ministry has cut growth projection for the current fiscal (2012-13) to about 5.9 per cent, which will be the lowest in a decade, reports said. The positive news, however, from the mid-year economic analysis provided by the government is that the slowdown in India has bottomed out and agriculture and services are expected to post better results,...

Indian Manufacturing Ranked Fourth Globally A global index of manufacturing drawn out by the consultancy firm- Deloitte -has placed India at the fourth position among 38 countries, which provides hope to the manufacturing sector, reports said. India has been placed behind China, Germany and the US. The Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index, 2013 based on a survey of CEOs executives an...