iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
In her recent visit to the US, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has made various rounds across the country meeting top officials in the Biden Administration to open up bigger possibilities and opportunities between the two nations.
Meeting them in person, she was glad to experience from the Biden admin in terms of welcoming her and showing support to the economic reforms recently introduced by the Indian government
“The reforms that we’ve undertaken, particularly the steps taken for the withdrawal of the retrospective tax has been mentioned by the United States Administration as a very positive step,” she said.
“The businesses with whom we have been interacting have also welcomed that decision,” Sitharaman told reporters.
“Many of them (businesses) thought it was bold and even though it took some time to come. We have also explained that they were legal compulsions before which we had to wait because some of the litigations which were going on had to come to a logical conclusion,” she said.
“We waited and the moment the logical conclusions were reached, we went to Parliament in withdrawing that. That’s been overall very positively welcomed,” she said.
In addition to participating in the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank here, her visit highlighted India’s economic recovery and her government’s commitment to long-term reforms.
On the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank discussions, Sitharaman had more than 25 bilateral meetings, the most significant of those was the India-US Economic and Financial Partnership.
That meeting was co-chaired by the finance minister and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
The discussions touched on key areas of economic recovery from the pandemic to macro-economic outlook; cooperation on global economic matters; climate finance support to infrastructure funding and combating of financing of terrorism.
She had a series of meetings with business leaders both in Boston and Washington DC.
A dinner in her honor hosted by India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, at India House, was attended by top US officials, including Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Change John Kerry, World Bank President David Malpass, USAID Administrator Samantha Power and Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy.
These engagements provided an opportunity to highlight structural reforms which the government has brought during the pandemic.
