TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Silicon Valley, California plans to honour Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ‘for the right priorities and focusing on the right issues’. But Jaitley has to be prepared to face a series of questions during his San Francisco Bay Area visit starting from Sunday 21 through 24.
His 7-day long trip to the United States starts on June 17 and, first, he would be visiting New York and Washington DC, and then head to California.
The TiE Silicon Valley event is on June 23 at Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto, California said Venktesh Shukla, TiE Silicon Valley president.
"We at TiE want to congratulate the new government for having the right priorities and focusing on the right issues - investment in infrastructure, speedier decision making, scandal free governance, speedier implementation of Aadhar, Jan Dhan Yojana and a whole host of other such great initiatives," Shukla, told Rediff.com.
But he said they also have issues that they would like to address to the minister.
Answering on what are the issues from the standpoint of Silicon Valley investors, Shukla said, "Unpredictable or cumbersome laws, tax law ambiguity - retroactive tax, current controversies regarding minimum tax, excessive escrow, etc."
Adding further he said bureaucracy is unpredictable and it's not easy to do business. He will ask the minister, why are founders and promoters increasingly incorporating outside India while pursuing global markets or seeking global capital and why is approach to legislation in India is reactionary rather than problem solving approach, Shukla said giving the example of Uber.
He also has meetings scheduled at Stanford University and USIBC (US-India Business Council) and executives of Silicon Valley companies and would hopefully address the crowd at International Yoga Day in San Francisco.
At an invitation only event hosted by SIEPR - Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Stanford Center for International Development (SCID) Jaitley will discusses, 'India’s Economic Future' on June 22 evening and in the afternoon he will attend a luncheon roundtable meeting, 'India - the New Land of Opportunity', hosted by the US-India Business Council.
Jaitley has expressed interest in participating at the International Yoga Day event in Marina Green Park in San Francisco, on June 21, where he will be addressing thousands of people according to the Indian Consulate.
"The finance minister is expected to reach in the afternoon and has expressed interest in participating and we hope he would be there," Venkatesan Ashok, Consul General of India in San Francisco, California told Rediff.com.
"He is coming to Washington DC and the momentum of US-India economic relationship is growing very fast, so it would be surprising if he does not visit West Coast where there is so much of energy and vibrancy in the economic sphere. So I think his visit is very timely and we look forward to this," Consul General Ashok said.
