Govt committed to biz friendly environment: Sinha

The government has introduced many reforms through legislation, including GST, as against a few via the Ordinance route and is committed to making India a business friendly destination, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said today.
"I would say there is a range of economic measures that we want to take...Few of our reforms measures are through ordinances, but there are many more that have been taken through legislation. GST Constitutional Amendment Bill has been taken through legislation route," Sinha said at India Today Global Round Table.
"It demonstrates our intent that we are undertaking very fundamental reform measures. We are doing it all for the purpose of ease of doing business," he added.

Sinha's comments come amid debate that the government is using the Ordinance route to push reforms as it does not have a majority in the Upper House.
On Foreign Direct Investments, Shina said: "There is a tidal wave of investment that is coming in. There are other big ticket FDI announcement that have to come over the time. FDI is something that is permanent money. It is associated with projects, it is associated with business plans, so we should just wait for that to happen."
Sinha also said that South Korean steel giant Posco has inked a joint venture with SAIL for an investment.

"Posco people visited recently. They signed a Joint Venture with Steel Authority of India (SAIL). They will invest a significant amount in Bokaro (steel plant). A very significant amount of investment will also be coming into e-commerce," he added.

Taking about visit of US President Barack Obama after two days, the minister said that the Indo-US ties are going to reach new heights with this visit.
Obama will be India for a three-day visit from January 25-27. He has been invited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to watch the Republic Day parade on January 26.
Among others, Sinha said government will play its role as a facilitator more effectively so as to produce a much better environment.

"Business to business linkages are very far ahead of the government to government linkages. On government to government side we have to ensure that there is no friction, we need to resolve those. There are many things that we are working on. The collaboration is happening," he added.
He also said there is a growing confidence in the Indian economy with USD 40 billion coming into the debt and equity markets last year.