India’s journey into the future entails a multitude of opportunities for investment collaboration, and participation by global investors, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday.
She was addressing the roundtable on ‘Investment Opportunities in India’ at the New York Stock Exchange. This is the oldest and the largest Stock Exchange in the World, with around 11 Indian companies listed on it. The Roundtable was attended by various pension funds and other institutional investors and fund managers across US, forming one of the largest financial systems in the world in terms of total assets under management.
During the meeting, she informed the participants that India’s market capitalisation has reached $5.5-trillion milestone and is currently ranked fourth globally, after US, China, and Japan., indicating that India’s reforms are yielding results. Referring to India’s maiden International Financial Services Centre GIFT City she listed global players and investors such as Citi Bank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are already engaging with it.
“The Union Finance Minister further informed that as of August 2024, more than 650 + entities across Banks, Capital Markets, Insurance, FinTech, Aircraft Leasing, Ship Leasing, Bullion Exchange, etc have been registered with the IFSCA,” a Finance Ministry post on X quoting the Minister said. Calling infrastructure, a key priority of the government, she said that NIIF was especially set up as a collaboration between public and private investors, and today it is backed by several highly leading global and domestic investors.
Outlining a host of new investment opportunities that exist across the NIIF platform, the Union Finance Minister said that anchors investments in a manner that mitigates risk for the investors. “She outlined that NIIF is coming up with a host of new Funds such as the Private Markets Fund II, US-India Green Transition Fund (USIGF) and the Master Fund II all of which provide exciting opportunities for long term investment and returns,” the statement said.
The Minister sought to reinvigorate India’s manufacturing abilities and integrate it with the redefining Global Supply Chains. The Union Finance Minister said that India has not only created a strong baseline for infrastructure creation and development with initiatives such as the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) and the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), but also bolstered the manufacturing sector’s competitiveness through Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes across sectors.
FM said that PM Gati Shakti, a programme launched to bring a master-planning approach to infrastructure, stands out as a unique example of using technology for real-time assessment of public policy impact on the ground. “She said that the Government of India has given further momentum to India’s growing presence in the global electronics value chains through the $10 billion India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) to achieve Atma Nirbhar Bharat in electronics & semiconductors,” the statement said.
This initiative gains importance especially in the light of the US Department of State’s recent announcement to partner with government for ISM and explore opportunities to grow and diversify global semiconductor ecosystem under the International Technology Security and Innovation (ITSI) Fund, created by the CHIPS Act of 2022 (CHIPS Act), she stated.