In the Budget for 2011-12, the government revised the tax mop-up target for 2010-11 to Rs. 4.46 lakh crore for direct taxes and Rs. 3.36 lakh crore for indirect taxes.
In an environment vitiated by strong arm tactics of some microfinancial institutions, financial inclusion could be a business opportunity.
The US has emphasised on the need for an "ambitious and balanced outcome", even as the World Trade Organization (WTO) is gearing up to circulate another set of texts to push all its 153 members to wrap up the Doha Round of global trade talks by the end of this year.
FDI is essentially long-term investments that come with added benefits such as better technology, management and marketing assistance, says the study.
The revised version of the FDI policy, which will be released on March 31, is expected to do away with Press Note 1, 2005, to bring in the above-mentioned change.
Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor in the finance ministry, said, "All I can say is, we are very serious about fiscal consolidation, and intend holding on to our fiscal targets, even if the crude price rises on a sustained basis."
This activity will allow us to identify those jurisdictions where either the legal framework is not good enough or practices are not good enough and, therefore, information is not flowing.
Under the services sector, India had been demanding greater opening, so that more professionals like doctors, nurses, chefs, accountants get greater job opportunities.
As India's investment rate is estimated to decline this financial year, industry chamber CII has asked Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to give a boost to investments in the forthcoming Budget, but economists believe a rollback of stimulus may continue.
Ministry will give relief to exporters through a mechanism that will enable a timely refund of credit balance and time-bound refund of additional duty of customs.
India and the US are set to address some of the prickly issues that have acted as major irritants in the commercial relations between both countries recently, to ensure greater flow of trade and investment.
We welcome all companies from India to come and invest and do business there. We have almost no restrictions in any sector at all. However, we expect similar reciprocity in India for our apples, pistachios, helicopters, and disaster relief materials, besides other products. We do not restrict such items from entering the US markets.
G-20, the grouping of developed and emerging market economies, will focus on food security but issues concerning India like rising prices of vegetables may not come up for discussions at a meeting in Paris next week.
The finance ministry said it would wait for RBI guidelines, a development which will provide much relief to ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank. Both are already known as Foreign Owned Indians Controlled entities, after foreign investment in them rose much above 50 per cent, following new norms of calculations by the commerce ministry.
The government is likely to extend interest subvention for some export-oriented sectors for another year to sustain the current growth in exports. This will be announced during the coming Union Budget for 2011-2012.
The government is set to announce some significant measures to reduce the high transaction costs faced by the country's exporters in their day-to-day operations. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will be unveiling the measures on February 8.
The finance ministry seems to be gung ho about economic growth next financial year. It may peg this at nine per cent for 2011-12 in the Economic Survey, likely to be tabled in Parliament on February 25, even as the Reserve bank of India (RBI) hinted at a lower figure.
As the debate on revealing names of those who had stashed money abroad was hotting up, a Parliamentary panel grilled finance ministry officials on why the confidentiality clause was put in tax treaties in the first place.
The government is unlikely to extend any more incentives to exporters this financial year, with the export growth rate at an impressive 36.3 per cent in December, even as they complain of a high interest rate eating away competitiveness.
Despite all official assurances, the path towards a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the European Union (EU) this year remains ambiguous, as both sides are unwilling to relax their stand on the biggest stumbling block - the issue of "data exclusivity".