FM Sitharaman holds 3rd pre-Budget consultation with Industry, services and trade groups

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday (December 17) held the third pre-budget consultations with stakeholder groups from Industry, Trade and Services Sectors in connection with the forthcoming General Budget 2020-21.

The main areas of discussion during the meeting included regulatory environment impacting private investment, measures for promotion of exports amid rising protectionist tendencies, Industrial production, logistics, Media and Entertainment services, IT and IT-enabled services among others, said a Ministry of Finance statement.

With a view to give boost to Indian economy, representatives of Industry, Services and Trade Sectors submitted several suggestions concerning Ease of doing business for going concern by reduction of compliance burden, reduction of tax litigation, allowing self-certification in low-risk industry, decriminalisation of Tax and Company Laws, reduction of cost of equity capital simplification and rationalisation with regards to duties and labour laws, adoption of international standards of Alternative, Dispute Resolution, Export Development funds for helping MSME exporters, ease of investment flow into manufacturing sector, said the FinMin statement.

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Along with the Finance Minister, the meeting was attended by Anurag Thakur, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Finance Secretary Rajeev Kumar, Atanu Chakraborty, Secretary, Economic Affairs, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Revenue Secretary, Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Guruprasad Mohapatra, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Anup Wadhanwan, Secretary Department of Commerce, Pramod Chandra Mody, Chairman, CBDT, PK Das, Chairman, CBIC, Dr KV Subramanian, CEA and other senior officials of Ministry of Finance.

Representatives of Industry, Services and trade Sectors included Vikram Kirloskar, President, CIL, Sandip Somany, President, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Deepak Sood, Secretary General ASSOCHAM, Ashish Vaid President, IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry, DK Aggarwal, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Animesh Saxena, President, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises, Ajay Sahai, DG & CEO, FIEO, C Veeramani, IGIDR, Pramod Kumar Agrawal, chairman, GJEPC, Rajeev Singh, Director General, ICC, CR Janardhana, President, FKCCI, Panaruna Aqeel Ahmed, Chairman, Council for Leather Exports, V Venugopal, President, Cochin Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Padmanabh Sinha, Chairman, IVCA, Rajni Aggrawal, President, Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneurs (FIWE), Sachin Taparia, Chairman & CEO, Local Circles India Pvt. Ltd, Aswani Mahajan, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Govind Lale, Laghu Udyog Bharathi, Jitendra Gupta, Laghu Udyog Bharathi.

Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to present her second Budget for the Modi government in the Lok Sabha on February 1. The main focus of the upcoming Budget will be on boosting economic growth, which slowed to an over six-year low of 4.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2019-20.

The Union Budget 2020-21 is likely to be a litmus test for the present government’s economic policies as it will be keenly watched by market watchers for numbers on key macroeconomic indicators. The pre-Budget consultations are expected to last till December 23.