Six-man panel to prepare blueprint

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, FEB. 5. A six member committee headed by the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Mr. M. Narasimham, has been constituted to work out a blueprint for making Hyderabad a major financial hub. The committee will be further expanded, with more members from within the country and abroad.

The announcement constituting the committee was made by the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, at the concluding session of The India Finance Forum-2000, a two-day international conference on finance, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Southern Region, here on Saturday.

Mr. Naidu had interaction with some of the eminent personalities from the fields of finance and Information Technology (attending the conference), before making the announcement at the valedictory session.

The committee comprises Mr. Darin Narayana, President, Bank One International, Mr. Nimesh Kampani, Chairman, J. M. Morgan Stanley, Mr. Ashok Soota, Chairman, Mindtree, Mr. Udayan Bose and Mr. Ramesh Gelli (Global Trust Bank).

It was also proposed to set up a separate financial district at Hyderabad with all infrastructure like civic amenities and high- speed digital networks connected to international gateways. The Government was keen to promote risk finance and venture capital for leveraging innovation, promoting technology and harnessing knowledge-based ideas.

The terms and conditions for foreign venture capital investors to invest in venture capital undertakings also needed to be liberalised to develop a vibrant venture capital industry in India.

In his valedictory address, the Governor, Dr. C. Rangarajan said the economy needed to grow at 7 per cent at least in order to expand employment opportunities, absorb additional labour force and reduce backlog of unemployed. For this, there was urgent need to step up the savings rate which had dropped to 22.3 per cent in 1998-99 from 24.7 per cent in the previous year. The decline was in all three segments- household, private corporate sector and the public sector- but was the sharpest in the public sector.

Dr. Rangarajan said the policies needed to be fashioned so as to attract more foreign investments, which can supplement domestic resources and which can flow into areas where investments were needed the most.

For the future growth of the financial system in India, he said regulation and innovation must go hand in hand. The Governor also stressed the need to ensure that there was no compromise on enforcing capital market regulations.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Regional
Next     : 3 civic bodies reserved for women