Washington, Mar 23: Despite the recent series of economic reform being pushed by the Indian government, US investors and officials have told a visiting top Indian official that doing business in India is "messy".
"I do understand that many of you may have difficult time in doing business in India. Many of you yesterday told me and I quote, "doing business in India is messy" unquote," the Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram said at a reception hosted for him by the US India Business Council (USIBC) yesterday.
At a two-hour long meeting held at the Treasury Department, convened by the Under Secretary of Treasury, Lael Brainard, a select group of American investors, corporate leaders and official gave a free and frank assessment of the current investment climate in India, where they said are eager to pump in their money.
At the end of the meeting, the Indian official pointed out that "we are partners in distress".
Mayaram is here leading an Indian delegation for US-India Economic & Financial Partnership meetings, between the US Treasury Department and Ministry of Finance.
Officials from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority IRDA), and Forward Markets Commission (FMC) and well as their US counterpart organisations have attended the series of meetings held in Washington on Thursday and Friday.
During the meetings and also on the Friday reception, Mayaram assured the investors and US corporate sector that the Indian government is determined to take the necessary hard decision to improve upon the climate of investment and make it business friend as quickly as possible.
"I think, you need to stay the course. You need to be there. We are a work in progress, because we are a developing country. We still need to improve our systems and we will continue to move in that direction. I can assure you that as time goes by, doing business in India will not be as messy as you think it is today," he said.
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