FM to meet regulators, exchanges, institutional investors today

Finance Minister P Chidambaram will be meeting key regulators and institutional investors, including FIIs and mutual funds, here on Saturday.

Chidambaram is visiting the financial capital for the first time after taking over as Finance Minister on August 1.

The meeting follows a series of big-ticket reforms to revive the economy and investor sentiment. He will be accompanied by top Finance Ministry officials, including Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram.

Beginning September 14, the government has unveiled a raft of reforms including opening up sectors such as retail, aviation, insurance, pensions and power trading among others, to direct foreign investments apart from allaying fears over the GAAR and retrospective tax issues.

Chidambaram will first meet Reserve Bank Governor Duvvuri Subbarao and the Deputy Governors at RBI headquarters.

The Finance Minister will then meet Sebi Chairman Upendra Kumar Sinha at the regulator's headquarters. He will also chair a meeting of the Sebi board.

That interaction will be followed up with a meeting with the heads of stock exchanges-BSE, NSE and MCX. Chidambaram will interact with apex mutual funds body, AMFI.

In the evening, Chidambaram will hold dialogue with Foreign Institutional Investors, who have been concerned about the provisions of General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) with a provision for retrospective taxation.

Chidambaram had earlier assured foreign investors to bring in a stable and investor-friendly tax regime.
PTI