India to hold roadshows for Gulf QFIs

New Delhi: Aiming at $75 billion investment from foreign retail investors in equity and bond markets, the finance ministry will this month organise roadshows in five Gulf nations, including Kuwati and the UAE.

“We will organise roadshows by the end of this month in five Gulf countries – Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, to attract Qualified Foreign Investors (QFI) in the securities market,” a senior finance ministry official said.[caption id=“attachment_265313” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Roadshows to attract more money. Reuters”] [/caption]

Over the next two years, he said, QFIs are likely to invest $50-75 billion in the country’s equity and bond markets.

A QFI is an individual, group or association resident in a foreign country that is compliant with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards. QFIs do not include FIIs/sub-accounts.

“We will have two major banks participating in the roadshows,” the official said, adding Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan himself is scheduled to participate in one of the shows.

In Budget 2012-13, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had announced opening up of corporate bond market for QFIs.

Earlier on 1 January 2012, the government had allowed QFIs to directly invest in the Indian equity market.

Allowing QFIs to directly invest in the Indian equity and bond markets would widen the non-resident investor base in stock markets and expand the set of non-resident portfolio investors, the official said.

The move comes against the backdrop of significant foreign capital outflows from the domestic equity market and lack of investors interest in corporate bond market.

In August last year, the government had allowed foreign investors to directly invest up to $13 billion in equity and debt schemes of mutual funds.

PTI