Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday asked market participants to work in a way that would help attract more retail savings into the financial market which, in turn, could be channelized towards economic activity. “For that, India needs a much bigger private sector which will mean more investments from foreign investors”, Jaitley said while speaking at an event to mark National Securities Depository’s custody value crossing Rs 100 lakh crore ($1.5 trillion). What is gloom for a few countries is not gloom for India, it becomes a boom for us.
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On the reform measures of the Narendra Modi government, he said that unlike in the past today “the number of obstructionists to reforms are very few and that if we don’t initiate reform measures to attain higher growth levels it will be unfair on our future generations”. Jaitley said, “even in globally adverse circumstances we can maintain a comfortable 7-8 per cent growth what would happen if current challenges were not there”.
The export market is slow and exports are consistently going down because the buyers in the world are slowing down. “Then you had two continuous years of below par monsoon… fortunately we have surplus food-grains, food prices are not an issue and food stocks are not an issue”. Private sector investments are low and the taxation system needed serious changes.
On the rising bad loans in the banking system, which crossed 13 per cent of the system in the June quarter, he said this is reflective of the stress in a few key sectors of the economy like power, steel and other metals and expressed the hope that the recent measures will be fruitful.
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He said that further expansion in capital markets would hinge on the integrity of institutions managing the markets, efficiencies, growth potential and credibility of corporates as they alone would excite investor interest. “The people who support reforms are much larger now than in 1991”.
