Less regulation, stable tax regime will invite more investments to India: Dell CFO

The Indian government needs to set up a stable tax framework and reduce the burden of regulation to attract more foreign investments, according to a top executive of Dell Technologies.

"We are hopeful that the new Goods and Services Tax regime should be helpful. What we want the government to do is set up a framework and environment that is stable so that we understand the rules and understand how to participate," Tom Sweet, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Dell Technologies told a small group of reporters here.

While interacting with the reporters on the sidelines of Dell EMC World 2017 in this casino town, Sweet said he was satisfied with Dell's business in India, but any instability in the tax structure was detrimental to foreign investment.

"If the investor is not confident of what the tax structure is going to look like, or what economic framework the government is driving at, it is often difficult to make long term investment decisions in some of the countries."

He repeatedly mentioned that a proper tax regulatory environment, rule of law and intellectual property protection were some of the important areas that the government should pay more attention to.

But he was also laudatory about India's potential. "We are happy with the India business. We think its a great long-term opportunity for us. We have invested significantly in the business over there in enterprise, commercial and cloud service provider business," Sweet said.

Dell, the personal computer company had merged with EMC, the world's largest digital storage company last year to form Dell Technologies, with a total revenue of around $74 billion.

Dell Technologies plans to invest $100 million every year in technology start-ups. Sweet said the company is mainly looking at start-ups based in the US and Israel and is also planning to "explore China".

Asked whether the company would be interested in investing in start-ups in India since the government is pushing this effort, Sweet said they will "keep an eye" on it. "We also realise that the pace of developments are picking up in India, so we will clearly keep an eye on that given the size of the market and opportunity," he said.

Speaking on the demonetisation drive that India went through, Sweet said it impacted the company's fourth quarter business in 2016.

"We got hit in the fourth quarter. When the country went through demonetisation activity it curtailed a lot of our consumer business. But once it was over I haven't seen any lingering effect of that."

Asked about the company's plans regarding hiring in the coming days as the US government was tightening the norms regarding employing foreign nationals, Sweet said: "We hire all over the globe today. It is a global economy and you need global talent, I do not want to get into the political environment of the visa issue but needless to say that we are also looking for good talent."

(Aparajita Gupta is in Las Vegas at the invitation of Dell EMC. She can be reached at aparajita.g@ians.in)

--IANS

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