The Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, struck a defiant note during a visit to Britain this week, as the debate over the retrospective changes to the Income-Tax Act, 1961 continues.
No direct mention of the dispute was made during the meeting of the India-UK Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO), on Monday, including by the British Minister, Mr Vincent Cable, who attended the meeting.
However, Mr Sharma made clear that recent warnings, including by the British Chancellor, Mr George Osborne, that the Vodafone dispute would taint investor sentiment towards India, would not rattle the Government.
World Bank figures from past few years had shown that India had delivered the “highest returns from investment of all emerging economies,” he said.
“We have a policy and regulatory environment that is very investor friendly,” Mr Sharma told the gathering of business persons in central London, for the annual meeting. “We are a rule-based, rule driven country,” he said.
When quizzed about specific issues by some of the delegates, including on software piracy, he said that India had laws “at par with anywhere in the world.”
Turning to the matter of India-British relations, he said while not without its “challenges” the countries were moving forward with their plans for a strategic partnership. “As mature democracies we need to look at the issues squarely and move on,” he said.
Free-trade pact
On the India-EU Free Trade Agreement, Mr Sharma and Mr Cable said that the treaty could be signed by the end of the year, with a deal “initialled' as early as the Autumn.
Mr Sharma's next meeting with the EU Trade Commissioner, Mr Karl De Gucht, will take place on April 26. He said that while it was unlikely that the two sides would reach an agreement on all outstanding issues there would be an inbuilt mechanism of review so that changes could be incorporated in the future.
“You can either see the glass half empty or half full… for me its half full.. You have to look at what is there for each one of us as opportunity, investment and trade.”