India Needs to Do More to Attract Foreign Investment: Singapore PM

India must allow other countries to operate too, it cannot be a one-way exercise, said Lee Hsien Loong.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. (Photo: AP)

India needs to open up further to international business investors, said Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s Prime Minister in an exclusive interview to The Hindu. He made some strong statements about making it easier for investors from other countries to operate as India’s experience has already shown the advantages of opening up the economy.

He also talked about being hopeful that a Singapore consortium would be able to get the contract to build Andhra Pradesh’s showcase capital city of Amaravati.

I think if you look at the Singapore projects, we wanted to do industrial parks. They have taken very long to clear the issues of land and these become politicised and you can’t settle it, and eventually the project languishes and nothing happens.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to <i>The Hindu</i>

Singapore is the biggest source of foreign direct investment into India. Because of this, the Prime Minister says that the country should not be treated at par with others while negotiating tax regulations.

Lee Hsien Loong believes Singapore should receive special treatment especially in the context of a renegotiation in India’s double taxation avoidance agreement with Mauritius which would keep investors from avoiding capital gains tax. He pointed out that Singapore and Mauritius are very different from each other.

But despite the bureaucratic red tape that acts as a deterrent to foreign investors, the Singapore PM believes the situation has changed in the last couple of years and will continue to do so.

Source: The Hindu