Ananth Narayan Gopalakrishnan, Whole-Time Member, SEBI at CII Finance 3.0 summit: While domestic investments have increased over time, India’s requirement for foreign savings hasn’t diminished.
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, September 3, 2024: “Quality foreign savings are critical for a sustainable cycle of capital formation and for that continued ease of doing business for foreign investors remains the prime objective for SEBI,” said Shri Ananth Narayan Gopalakrishnan, Whole-Time Member, SEBI at the session on ‘FDI Inflows: The Big Indian Opportunity’ at the Financing Summit 3.0 organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Mumbai today. He added that while domestic investments have increased over time, India’s requirement for foreign savings hasn’t diminished.
India’s capital markets are doing well, with the country getting capital from both domestic as well as foreign stakeholders”, said Ananth Narayan G, Whole-Time Member, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), while giving a special address during the during the session on ‘FDI Inflows: The Big Indian Opportunity’ at #CIIFinancingSummit held in Mumbai today.
To facilitate greater ease of doing business for foreign portfolio investors, SEBI has undertaken various steps – including setting up of a dedicated FPI cell, which serves as a one-stop shop for foreign investors, highlighted Shri Gopalakrishnan. Shortening the settlement cycle to T+1 is also one of the recent examples of SEBI’s initiative in this direction. Transparent charges and efficiency are two of the other important aspects which SEBI is focusing on in terms of providing a facilitative ecosystem for FPIs, he further noted. Simple measures such as an online tracker to see at which stage the investments are getting stuck, are bearing great results in providing an enabling environment for investors. While stressing the importance of collaboration between the industry and the regulator, Shri Gopalakrishnan explained that a two-way consultative process has greatly helped SEBI to frame easy yet effective regulatory principles.
Addressing at the session Mr Imad N Fakhoury, Regional Director, South Asia, IFC, exuded great confidence in the Indian economy and highlighted that India constitutes the largest portfolio for International Finance Corporation (IFC). Mr Fakhoury reiterated that patient and quality investing brings in many other developmental benefits to a country including creating jobs, which will greatly help India to reap the benefits of its demographic dividend.
Mr N Venkatram, Country Chair, CDPQ India clarified that India’s goal of becoming a “Atmanirbhar Bharat” should not be confused with India’s need to garner greater foreign savings for its developmental needs. He underlined that greater deepening of the bond markets is an urgent need for India as it embarks on its journey towards its “Viksit Bharat” goal, which will require huge amounts of funding.
While the pace of incoming FDI inflows might have slowed down over the past 2-3 years, the bright aspect is that India has many opportunities to attract quality investments. To be able to capitalize those opportunities, India needs to focus on strategic reforms in the areas of tax and regulatory mechanisms among others, noted Ms Nitu Samra, CFO, Noida International Airport.
Moderating the session, Mr. Janardhanan Ramanujalu, Vice President, Regional Head, Rest of Asia (Excl. GC), SABIC, underscored the importance of FDI not only from financing perspective but also bringing in greater technical know-how, innovation, patents etc. which could prove to be transformative for the Indian manufacturing sector.
