Investor-friendly India: How are India's States Faring? A NCAER-PRI Dialogue

Investor-friendly India: How are India’s States Faring? A NCAER-PRI Dialogue

NCAER organized an NCAER-PRI video-dialogue, the third in the series of an on-going dialogue with PRI. The theme of the dialogue was India’s investment climate and focused particularly on India’s states. PRI, the Policy Research Institute in Japan, is affiliated with the Japanese Ministry of Finance. The Dialogue follows two earlier video-dialogues in February and June 2015 and is part of the work envisaged by NCAER and PRI to foster joint work and greater collaboration in enhancing economic relations between Japan and India.

Interest in India as an investment destination has risen sharply in Japan, particularly in the light of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign and reciprocal visits by the two prime ministers, including Mr Modi’s last visit in November 2016 when the two countries also signed a civil nuclear pact. The number of Japanese companies entering India has gone up substantially in the past year. Building on this momentum, India and Japan have set ambitious goals for bilateral trade and investment.  Under the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership, the two prime ministers have set an ambitious target of 3.5 trillion yen for public and private investment and ODA and a doubling of the number of Japanese companies in India in just five years. Many have heralded this as a special moment in India’s relationship with Japan.

Tuesday’s dialogue featured three presentations on India’s investment climate.  Ms Mythili Bhusnurmath, Senior Consultant, NCAER, spoke on “The NCAER-State Investment Potential Index (N-SIPI)”, Mr Tomofumi Nishizawa, Research Manager, Asia and Oceania Overseas Division, Research Department, JETRO, spoke on “Japanese Companies in India: Expectations, Achievements and Challenges” and Mr Neelkanth Mishra, Managing Director, Equity Research, Credit Suisse Securities India, made a presentation on “Doing Business in India: What has changed and What has not.”

The presentations were followed by a lively open discussion with useful questions from New Delhi led by Dr Shekhar Shah, Director-General of NCAER, and followed by perceptive comments and questions from Tokyo. The Dialogue was attended in New Delhi by NCAER researchers and other invited participants and in Tokyo by a number of Japanese participants eager to know more about investing in India.