Talks on to bring international arbitration facilities at GIFT

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) is in advance stages of talks to bring in international arbitration names within its premises, according to Ajay Kumar Pandey MD & CEO.

“Entities usually prefer Singapore, Hong Kong or London for their international arbitration requirements and the move to get arbitration facilities at GIFT would enable people to use them right here,” Pandey said in an interaction with BusinessLine .

An ecosystem for dispute resolution will get created at GIFT with the opening up of law firms and other related services, he added.

The mechanism would provide for resolving issues related to non-rupee related transactions that would be done out of the GIFT premises.

As on date, four banks have started operations, seven have licences and in all 22 would be operating from the financial services zone which is deemed foreign territory.

“Financial regulators — RBI, SEBI and IRDA — have already appointed nodal officers to process applications of entities regulated by them within GIFT. Without their support, we would not have been able to cover so much of our journey,” Pandey added.

A number of sops have been extended by both the Central and State governments.

Securities transaction tax, commodities transaction tax and long-term capital gains tax have been waived while the dividend distribution tax has been abolished within GIFT. In addition, Minimum Alternate Tax has been reduced from 18.5 per cent to nine per cent in the Union Budget.

The Gujarat government has exempted registration, stamp duty and conversion fee within GIFT, provided construction subsidy of ₹300 per square feet to developers for building IT /ITES parks and another ₹300 per square feet subsidy to units employing a minimum of 3,000 people for five years, Pandey observed.

Other prominent incentives include reimbursement of electricity duty and ₹1 subsidy on tariff to developers and units, reimbursement of employer PF contribution (100 per cent for females and 75 per cent for males) to units within the zone. Reimbursement of VAT for eight years, lease rental subsidies as applicable, capital subsidy for hardware and networking upto ₹1 crore, besides market development support and patent assistance by the State government.