India Tells Obama: Policy Making Our 'Sovereign' Right

New Delhi, July 17 IRNA -- Asserting that policy decision is 'sovereign' right of the country, India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma Monday said the Barack Obama administration should itself lead the fight against protectionism and trade barriers. In his reaction to the US President's remarks that India must carry out difficult economic reforms, Sharma said,' 'he (Obama) has every right to convey what his perceptions are but the policy making is a sovereign decision and India's FDI policy regime is investor-friendly'. Obama in an interview to PTI noted that India prohibits foreign investment in too many sectors such as retail and endorsed another wave of economic reforms. 'It is still too hard to invest in India. In too many sectors, such as retail, India limits or prohibits the foreign investment...which is necessary for India to continue to grow,' Obama has said. Citing different reports, Sharma said India remains one of the attractive destinations for foreign direct investment as most of the sectors are open for FDI. '...by all indications it is the regime, the climate that we have created in India through various policy measures, reforms, simplification, rationalisation. We have followed a calibrated approach in following the path of economic reforms,' he told reporters here. Besides, several Indian companies have made big investments abroad including in the US creating over half a million jobs in America at a time of job losses there. 'We would rather urge the US to demonstrate leadership in bringing down barriers, encouraging capital flows and trade in the world which is good for every economy. The US should be leading the fight against protectionism and taking forward the stalled Doha Development Round of the WTO to a meaningful conclusion,' he added. Sharma said that UNCTAD in its report has ranked India as the third important destination to attract FDI. 'JBIC (Japan Bank for International Cooperation) has also placed India at number two, and in the long term they have put India on number one. E&Y has said that over four-fifth of FDI in South Asia has come into India,' he said. Earlier on Sunday, responding to US President Barack Obama raising concerns over 'deteriorating' investment climate in India, corporate affairs minister Veerappa Moily told reporters in Bangalore that the perception of deteriorating investment climate in India was not based on economic parameters, but on certain impression of few individuals, entrepreneurs and investors, pti reported. Moily said there was no crisis in India, whereas the US and other countries were facing crisis, 'not once but twice in 2008 and 2010'. 'Not even a single financial institution has collapsed in this country, whereas many such things have collapsed in US and other countries,' he added. Moily said in the last one decade, India has registered a vibrant growth rate of 8 to 9.5%, 'but perhaps for the economic crisis in the US and Europe, the country would have definitely crossed 10 per cent of the GDP.' 'That is the potential of India which can recover back immediately by taking some remedial steps,' Moily said./end