Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said India was not contemplating to set up a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).
"There is no such proposal under consideration of the Government at present", the minister said in his written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha whether the government was contemplating to establish a SWF.
Chidambaram's statement comes amidst clamour that India, which has forex reserves in excess of $ 300 billion, should launch its SWF. The SWFs are government-owned investment vehicles, which have acquired significance in the recent times due to their proliferation and size.
Even the Reserve Bank Governor Y V Reddy in his recent address in Washington spelled out the pros and cons of setting up an Indian SWF.
Reddy had said, "India is watching with great interest the development of global codes, standards and practices in regard to SWFs, both in view of the presence of SWFs in the Indian financial market and the ongoing debate on establishing an Indian SWF."
Presently there are about 40 SWFs around the world, which collectively manage a corpus of about $ 3 trillion.
In view of the importance of SWFs, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently set up an International Working Group of SWFs to formulate a set of principles to reflect investment practices and objectives.
