Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the economic indicators suggested that the state of India’s economic growth was moving very fast, with the all engines fully functioning.Speaking at the BS Manthan in New Delhi, Sitharaman said she credited the entire Finance Ministry for having kept a complete watch and being very meticulous about the way in which they had drawn inputs about the economic health of the country.
Assuring the healthy state of economy, she said the periodic reports, which had come from the banks, had not been in contradiction of what the ministry had outlined.
On economic challenges, Sitharaman emphasised that the country had challenges and some of which they could address but there were some which were beyond them but yet they had a power to have an impact.
“Luckily, in these past 5-6 years, the government has been able to manage the challenges in form of global uncertainties. However, in order to overcome it, we have signed trade agreements; we are also making sure taxation-related agreements are updated appropriately, and countries are coming to align well with what India has to offer to the world.”
On Bilateral Investment Treaties (BIT), she said post 2016 model BIT, which the government had come up, had been tweaked completely where bilateral requirement demanded it with approval from the Cabinet.
She said there were countries which asked for BIT during negotiations and there were some that were investing without asking for BIT, so the world of investment seemed to be going through different priorities.
Asked about relaxing the rules for China’s investment in India, Sitharaman said both the countries were very different from each other from economic point of view. Investments from China did go through the process of origin and you needed to know who the ultimate beneficiary owner is.
“I will be concerned about the ultimate beneficiary owner and what kind of money or investments is coming from China or from any other country for that matter. We have to be assuring that such money can be traced to the ultimate owner,” she added.
