NEW DELHI, 27 August 2021: Manoj Kumar, Executive Director, International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) yesterday highlighted several initiatives being undertaken at GIFT-IFSC and urged the industry, market participants and intermediaries to make use of the unlimited opportunities available at GIFT-IFSC.
Addressing the ‘Digital Roadshow on Opportunities for Fund Industry in GIFT-IFSC’, organized by FICCI, under the aegis of IFSCA, Kumar asserted IFSCA’s vision to be a light touch regulator and not create any due burden on market participants. “As a unified financial regulator, best global practices are being adopted with a strong focus on ease of doing business at all levels,” he added.
Kumar also spoke about the pilot launch of International Bullion Exchange on the IFSC platform; scheduled to go live on 1st October, the Foundation Day of IFSCA. He underscored that this is a huge development since the exchange ecosystem is expected to bring all the market participants at a common transparent platform for bullion trading and help establish India’s position as a dominant trading hub.
Complementing the IFSCA for its speed and proactiveness in policy announcements, Cyril Shroff, Co-Chair, FICCI Task Force on IFSC said, “Institutionalization of IFSCA as a unified regulator was the need of the hour and will bring back to India significant investments which were which were being exported until now. Having a unified regulator allows advantage of a holistic view across dimensions and facilitates quick decision making.” He further added that GIFT-City is increasingly becoming a popular destination for foreign capital due to the several advantages it offers in terms of favourable tax regime and cost and ease of doing business. There is also a significant opportunity available for Indian investors to use GIFT-CITY as gateway for investments in foreign paper instead of remittances abroad, added Shroff.
Sunil Sanghai, Co-Chair, FICCI Task Force on IFSC emphasized the regulator’s focus on building a viable proposition for the fund industry at GIFT IFSC. “Several positive initiatives have already been taken and some of the key benefits being offered to the AIF industry in IFSC include lower operating costs, competitive tax regime, no limit on outbound investments and creation of an entire ecosystem for fund management. IFSCA is also examining the feasibility of Variable Capital Company structure, which would be a huge development.”
Dipesh Shah, Head Development, IFSCA, India highlighted significant momentum being witnessed in the growth of Fund Industry ecosystem at India’s maiden IFSC, over the last one year. “Close to 25 Fund related entities have already finalised their participation in IFSC. Going forward, we expect another 20-25 funds to set up base in GIF IFSC by March 2021.” Thereafter, he stressed on the importance being given to “Ease of Doing Business” and the facilitative role being played by IFSCA for the fund industry participants.
The webinar was attended by representatives from the domestic fund industry as well as from countries including Singapore, UK, Canada, Japan, Sri Lanka, London and Peru.
