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The Government acknowledges investment as the paramount requirement for consolidating the growth process. The Union Budget (2005-06) proposes to enhance both public and private investment for financing overall growth, by providing supportive policy environment and stable tax policies, promoting savings, and devising ways and means for channelising savings into productive investment. The Budget also highlighted the significant role played by foreign direct investment (FDI) with industries like automobile, software, telecommunication and electronics, assimilating themselves into global production chains, and underlined the benefits that can arise from FDI in other sectors of the economy.
The surplus in the capital account of India’s balance of payments expanded from US $ 8.4 billion in 2001-02 to US $ 20.9 billion in 2003-04. In the first half of the current financial year, the capital account has recorded a lower surplus of US $ 10.1 billion vis-à-vis US $ 11.9 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year.
This information was given by Shri S. S. Palanimanickam, Minister of State for Finance in reply to a question by Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu in Lok Sabha Today.
BSC/BY/DT-162/05
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