XIAMEN (CHINA) – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Singh Modi said that the GST (Goods and Services Tax) implementation on 1st July 2017 was one of the largest revolutionary steps in India’s history. He mentioned that India was changing very fast into one of the most open economies in the world today. He said this while addressing the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit. This was the 9th BRICS summit that he was attending.
He also mentioned that the FDI’s (Foreign Direct Investments) were at the peak and an all-time high rising by approximately 40%. India has now moved up in the World Bank index of ease of doing business and up to 32 spots in the last couple of years in the global competitive index. The GST that was introduced earlier this July has created a unified market of 1.3 billion people in one go, he added.
He proudly also mentioned that the various initiatives were taken by the government such as made in India campaign, start-up India, Digital India had changed the entire economic landscape of the country. These initiatives have been assisting India into a knowledge based Centre, which has skills and is a technology driven society.
Mr. Modi also thanked the BRICS Business Council, who played a significant role in giving a convenient shape to the mission of the bloc’s partnership. He said that the partnerships that have been formulated and the networking that has been initiated had energized the economic growth of the BRICS nations. He also praised the BRICS council for entering into a MoU (Memorandum of understanding) with the NDU (New Development Bank), which is a multilateral development bank established by the BRICS member states.
Later he mentioned that the BRICS council’s work towards the formation of BRICS rating agency, energy cooperation, green finance and digital economy were very significant measures for the development of the nations. He was of the opinion that the BRICS Council has similar priorities to India such as trade and investment facilitation, promotion of skills development (skill India), infra sector development, MSME and SME (small and medium enterprise development), e-commerce, m-commerce and digital India.
The BRICS Council was attended by the host China President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brazilian President Michel Temer and the South African President Jacob Zuma.
