Domestic reforms will neutralise global slowdown: Jaitley

TIL Desk/Business/Mumbai/ Promising a continued policy push to boost economic activities and investment flows, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said domestic reforms will “neutralise” any adverse impact of the global slowdown. Addressing the BRICS investment seminar in Mumbai ahead of the 5-nation Summit in Goa on October 15-16, he said the government has put FDI on automatic route in almost 90 per cent of the areas that are eligible for foreign direct capital.

“Over the last two-and-a-half years most of the sectors have been reviewed and we now have probably the most open FDI policy in the world with 90 per cent of FDI coming in through the automatic route,” he said. Stating that the ease of doing business has improved massively since the Modi government came to power, Jaitley said many sectors have been brought into the automatic route and now we don’t have any instance of cases pending indefinitely before the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.

“We have learnt that notwithstanding the fact that there is a contraction as far as global growth is concerned, at least by domestic reforms we can neutralise the impact of the ongoing global slowdown,” he said.