India must learn to manage inflows, says finance minister

Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram said Friday that foreign investment should not face restrictions, news website businessstandard.com reported in New Delhi.

Chidambaram said at the Confederation of Indian Industry annual session here that India must learn to manage inflows, as is being done by China.

At the same time, he said, India must not do anything that will restrict investment domestic and foreign, and private and public.

There were problems associated with copious inflows of foreign investment but they cannot become a ground to reject foreign investment, Chidambaram said.

The government has recently taken several steps to curb foreign investment inflows through debt and equity in some sectors, including real estate.

On prices, Chidambaram asked industry to refrain from raising prices arbitrarily by taking advantage of the demand-supply mismatch.

A worldwide increase in prices of metals and commodities such as crude oil, supply-demand mismatch in essential food items like sugar, wheat and pulses, public expenditure in the social sector and an increase in per capita income had put pressure on inflation, Chidambaram said.

Source: Xinhua