GIFT City

- An IFSC is a jurisdiction that provides world class financial services to customers outside the jurisdiction of the domestic economy. Such centres deal with flows of finance, financial products and services across borders.
- London, New York and Singapore can be counted as global financial centres.
Services provided by an IFSC:

- Fund-raising services for individuals, corporations and governments
- Asset management and global portfolio diversification undertaken by pension funds, insurance companies and mutual funds
- Wealth management
- Merger and acquisition activities among trans-national corporations, etc.

India’s 1st IFSC was set up at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) in Gandhinagar in 2011.
It is intended to provide Indian corporates with easier access to global financial markets, and to complement and promote the further development of financial markets in India.

The tenth Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) between India and the U.K. steered by U.K. Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was held recently.
During the dialogue, the U.K. entered into a strategic partnership to develop the international financial services centre GIFT City.
U.K. also agreed to set up a new Fund of Funds to be managed by the State Bank of India group in order to route U.K.’s future capital investments into India.
India and U.K. also signed off on a new infrastructure finance and policy partnership to help India execute its National Infrastructure Pipeline that envisages investments worth $1.4 trillion.
To mobilise private capital for green investment, a new U.K.-India Sustainable Finance Forum is also being established.

To achieve the GDP of $5 trillion by 2024-25, India needs to spend about $1.4 trillion (100 lakh crore) over these years on infrastructure. To implement an infrastructure program of this scale, the government has envisaged the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP).
In April 2020, the Task Force on National Infrastructure Pipeline submitted its Final Report on NIP for FY 2019-25.

The final report projects a total infrastructure investment worth Rs 111 lakh crore during the financial period 2020-25.
Sectors such as energy (24%), roads (18%), urban (17%) and railways (12%) amount to around 71% of the projected infrastructure investments.
The Central Government (39 per cent) and State Governments (40 per cent) are expected to have almost equal share in funding of the projects followed by the Private Sector (21 per cent).
The Task Force has recommended that three Committees be setup:
- a Committee to monitor NIP progress and eliminate delays;
- a Steering Committee in each Infrastructure ministry level for following up implementation; and
- a Steering Committee in the Department of Economic Affairs for raising financial resources for the NIP.

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