India Inc welcomes Mumbai turning IFC
This would accelerate the consumption of fin services while unleashing competition and innovation.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: Corporate India on Tuesday welcomed the report of the high-powered expert committee on transforming Mumbai into an international financial centre (IFC), saying it would accelerate the consumption of financial services in the country while unleashing competition and innovation.
“We have always articulated Mumbai as the financial capital of India and projecting it as the financial hub of the world, in the same league as New York and London, is a step forward. It will improve the credit worthiness of India and significantly increase consumption of financial services in the country as more companies establish operations. It will also create more high-end employment opportunities,” Wipro CFO Suresh K Senapati, said.
He said that India’s aspirations of developing Mumbai as an IFC was `achievable’. “Reforms need to be undertaken to make India a part of the global economy through the process of less control on flow of foreign exchange, by making Rupee convertible. We expect more activity in an accelerated way over the next 3-5 years,” Mr Senapati said.
A statement from apex industry chamber CII said making Mumbai an IFC would unleash the dynamics of competition and innovation. “Mumbai as IFC is now a necessity to realise the objective of making ‘financial services’ the next growth engine for India. The report is most timely and appropriate,” CII said.
A finance official at a large auto company said the idea is to make Mumbai a financial hub along the lines of London, not just a tax haven like Mauritius or Bermuda.
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“India has a substantial economy to back this up and instead of those financial services being done in Singapore, it can be done in Mumbai. A prerequisite for this is capital account convertibility — but there’s a time line to this agenda. Just because there’s no capital account convertibility now, doesn’t mean we can’t do things step by step to take us to IFC,” he said.As part of that overall environment, the official said that government needs to exit PSU banks because it can’t be both the regulator and the owner in the sector. Some like Grasim Industries, CFO and director, DD Rathi, felt that improving the infrastructure, strengthening security environment and simplification of rules and large scale trained manpower would be crucial elements in establishing Mumbai as a global financial hub.
“We need to address the basic issues of potholed roads, overcrowded airport and red tapism to emerge as a successful business centre,” Mr Rathi said.
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