India is aspiring to compete with the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong for foreign entrepreneurs by offering residence in return for investment.
The Cabinet yesterday approved a plan that would allow foreigners to settle if they plow enough money into the US$2 trillion economy, government spokesman Frank Noronha said in New Delhi, without providing further details.
Foreigners investing 100 million rupees (US$1.5 million) over 18 months, or 250 million rupees over three years, would be eligible to live in India for 10 years under the Ministry of Home Affairs’ proposal, people with knowledge of the matter had said earlier, asking not to be identified as the details were not public.
The so-called permanent residency status could be extended by another decade providing certain conditions are met, they said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to capitalize on the nation’s position as the fastest-growing big economy to woo investment, particularly in manufacturing to create jobs for the poor.
The challenge lies in convincing entrepreneurs to embrace a nation with byzantine rules, dirty air and infrastructure snarls — such as the one that emboxed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s convoy in a two-hour traffic jam during an official visit to New Delhi on Monday.
Foreign investors would be allowed to buy one residential property, and their spouses and children would be able to work or study, the people said.
However, nationals of long-time rival Pakistan, or other citizens of Pakistani origin, would be blocked from the program, they said.
“It’s an indication of more broad-mindedness towards foreign investors — it’ll be easier for them to come to India,” said Mohan Guruswamy, a former Indian ministry of finance official and chairman at the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
At the same time, investors looking to settle somewhere would likely look for other destinations such as Canada, he said.
Indian Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley unveiled the proposal for long-term residency in February, without providing more details. Currently, investors get five-year business visas, according to the text of his budget speech.
Foreign direct investment in India climbed 23 percent to US$55 billion in the 12 months ending March, buoyed by Modi’s steps to ease curbs on inflows.
Indian Minister of Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said that Asia’s No. 3 economy would open more sectors to investment from abroad. Even so, entrepreneurs still have to adhere to detailed rules governing participation in everything from defense to e-commerce.
India ranked 130th of the 189 economies in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index for this year.
That is up four places from a year ago, but still much lower than Asian centers such as Singapore and Hong Kong, which have long offered investor visa options.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
RSS