The Union Finance Minister Aruj Jaitley said that there is huge curiosity and interest in India especially among domestic and foreign investors. The Finance Minister said that we can't afford to miss this opportunity.
The Finance Minister Shri Jaitley said that ordinarily everything is going in our favour including growth prospects. The Finance Minister further said that other developed and emerging market economies like Brazil, South Africa, Europe, Japan and Russia among others are facing challenging situation while our prospects are showing an upward trend.
The FM was speaking at the Investiture Ceremony to honour the officers of Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) for their excellent performance and International Customs Day function organised by CBEC.
The Finance Minister said that in order to make best use of this opportunity, we have to address two major concerns i.e. quick decision making and stability in policy matters and reforms in tax structure and administration. The Finance Minister said that there is need for change both in attitude and mind set towards investors' and assesses. He said that we need to have a non-adversarial tax administration which is both investors' and assesses' friendly.
The Finance Minister further asked the CBEC officers to ensure that those who are liable to pay tax must pay their dues and tax evaders must be taken to task. However, the Finance Minister said that at the same time, they have to maintain certain level of civility with assesses and investors which must be cogent and logical.
The Finance Minister said that revenue collections which was affected due to low manufacturing in the last 2-3 years are also turning around and we hope to meet our fiscal targets. He said that our reserves are good and Current Account Deficit (CAD) position is much better.
The Finance Minister said that our currency was among the two global currencies which withstood the might of dollar in recent times. He said that we try to improve where we found ourselves wanting. He asked the custom officers to safeguard borders by curbing unlawful economic activities.
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