Red carpet has replaced red tape: Puri to Japanese investors

Red carpet has replaced red tape in India, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said today, as he invited Japanese companies to invest in sectors such as renewable energy, electronic hardware and smart city projects.
Addressing the 42nd joint meeting of 'India-Japan Business Co-operation Committee' here, the housing and urban affairs minister said he was also "looking around the world" to get technology and resources for solid waste management, a part of Swachh Bharat Mission, on a large scale.
He said India offers a "massive economic opportunity" as the nation requires to build 700-900 square metre of residential and commercial spaces every year till 2030 to accommodate the estimated 600 million people living in urban areas by that time.

He noted that 70 per cent of 2030 India has not been built yet.
"India is strongly committed to improving the ease of doing business. Red carpet has replaced Red Tape," he said, adding that over the last three years, the government has taken several initiatives to promote economic growth, investor confidence and business sentiment in India.
Puri said the initiatives include establishing commercial courts, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy code and the Goods and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"Japanese companies should consider projects under Smart Cities, renewable energy, waste to energy, electronic hardware and life sciences," he said.

The minister said that other mega infrastructure projects auch as the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor (CBIC), the Metro Rail projects in Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru also offer "unprecedented opportunities" for the Japanese industry and products to enter India.
"Other flagship initiatives such as Startup-India and Digital India offer opportunities to raise our engagement to the next level in keeping with the advent of Industry 4.0," he said.
Stating that Japan was the 3rd largest investor in India, he said there was a sharp increase in Japanese FDI in India in the 2016-2017 fiscal, with the figure reaching USD 4.7 billion, up 80 per cent from the USD 2.6 billion in the previous financial year.