U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently issued a formal joint statement to coincide with Prime Minister Modi’s momentous visit to the United States. In order to raise investment by institutional investors and corporate entities, the leaders pledged to establish a new “Indo-U.S. Investment Initiative” led by the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Treasury, with special focus on capital market development and financing of infrastructure. President Obama and Prime Minister Modi also pledged to establish an Infrastructure Collaboration Platform convened by the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Commerce, to enhance participation of U.S. companies in infrastructure projects in India.
In furtherance of the principles articulated in the joint statement, the Indian Embassy today consulted with select representatives of U.S. industry in order to frame the recently announced bilateral Indo-U.S. Investment Initiative. Topics discussed included:
- investor concerns about retroactive taxation, general anti-avoidance rules, and the use of double-taxation avoidance agreements;
- depth in India’s bond market;
- feasibility of land reforms to facilitate infrastructure investment;
- widening the scope of eligible defense offsets to enable private sector investment; and
- enhancing listing options for Indian-based technology /emerging growth and late stage companies.
Economic Minister Govind Mohan presided over the dialogue, which was facilitated by the U.S.-India Business Council (Diane Farrell and Melissa Frakman). Minister Mohan is the senior-most economic official representing the Government of India in the United States. U.S. industry was represented by Dechert LLP (Asma Chandani), Franklin Templeton (Vijay Advani), New Silk Route Partners (Parag Saxena and Rishi Gupta) and Wellington Management Company (Ashish Chugh), among others.
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