FM Arun Jaitley voices India open to joining APEC

US lawmakers last last month said allowing economically prosperous India to join APEC will help US's strategic goals in Asia

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday India was open to joining the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, a grouping of 21 Pacific Rim nations aimed at developing free trade and economic partnership amongst its members.

"There are efforts underway to make India a part of APEC. We are open to joining the forum," Jaitley said at the Growth Net Conference in New Delhi.

The Finance Minister’s remarks gain significance as just last month, a bill was introduced in the United States Congress by lawmakers who said that allowing the economically prosperous India to join APEC will help the US’s strategic goals in Asia.

Some other members of the Singapore-headquartered APEC include Australia, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, among others.

Jaitley spoke on a number of other topics at the event, including on the long pending Constitution Amendment Bill on Goods and Service Tax. He said that the government will initiate fresh talks with the Congress party on its demand for capping the GST rate at 18% in the bill itself, to break the impasse over the bill.

“The only opponent on the GST is the Congress party. In its belated wisdom, the Congress party has demanded a constitutional cap on the GST rate. I am going to discuss with them. I am all for a reasonable rate under GST and hopefully there will be some consensus,” he said.

Taking a dig at the party which mooted the GST when it was in power, Jaitley said there should be greater maturity in a parliamentary democracy where a party’s stand on an issue is not determined by whether they sit on the Treasury benches or the opposition benches.

Jaitley also touched upon the other pending reform measures on the NDA government’s legislative agenda and said that he was optimistic on the bankruptcy law receiving support from the opposition parties.

Just days after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan cutting policy rates by 25 basis points to a five year low, , Jaitley said that the Indian economy will grow at a marginally higher rate as compared to the last two years.

"We should maintain or marginally improve the growth rate this year than what we had in the last two years," he said and added that 7-7.5% growth rate was achievable for the current fiscal.