Better late than never, $10-bn wealth fund in the works

New Delhi: The Planning Commission wants India to set up a sovereign wealth fund with an initial corpus of $10 billion, mainly to invest in energy and mining assets abroad.

“Sovereign Wealth Fund is something that the finance ministry is looking at. We have suggested to start with $10 billion,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here on Thursday, on the sidelines of a Ficci event.

[caption id=“attachment_79932” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Countries like China and Singapore have already set up their sovereign wealth funds. Reuters”]  [/caption]

Sovereign Wealth Fund is a government-owned corpus where money is pooled in from state resources to invest in overseas assets. India has been mulling to set up its own fund in order to acquire strategic overseas assets in mining and energy segments to meet its future needs.

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Countries like China and Singapore have already set up their sovereign wealth funds. Even China has acquired significant asset in foreign land through investment from its $400 billion fund in the recent past.

Referring to GDP growth in the current fiscal, Ahluwalia said growth in the second half of the year would be crucial to attain 8 percent economic expansion in the current financial year. “Growth could be around 8 percent (this fiscal). But in the first quarter, it is below that. So to achieve 8 percent, the growth has to accelerate in the second half of the year,” he said.

He also said that he is not focusing on short-term issues. Ahluwalia also said RBI has to decide whether it wants to give a pause to the monetary tightening policy. “I generally agree with the finance minister. Personally what the finance minister has said is an indication of what the government thinks. But, it’s a (RBI) Governor’s call,” Ahluwalia said.

The central bank has raised key policy rates 11 times in the last one-year-and-a-half years to rein in rising inflation. However, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently said that the central bank should give a pause to such liquidity squeeze in the wake up a global economic turmoil.

About the fiscal deficit target, he said it is possible to stick to 4.6 percent fiscal deficit target if the government keeps expenditure under control. “I have noted and welcomed what the Finance Minister has said (regarding fiscal deficit) and we are hopeful that they will be able to stick to the fiscal deficit,” he said. As a huge amount of expenditure is approved in supplements, the government has the leverage to control this, he added.

PTI