PM Modi pitches investment from the US, claims "India Got $20 Billion during Lockdown"

On Wednesday, PM Narendra Modi reached out to various US firms and invited them to invest inIndia. He offered them an insight of the ways government is taking to facilitate investors and the growth the most of the sectors including infrastructure, aviation, and defense and space research have registered or hold potential of. Modi explained India as a great investment destination and said, "During the COVID-19 lockdown, India got 20 billion dollars in investment".

"Today, there is global optimism towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options," Modi stated while delivering the keynote address at the India-Ideas summit.

Further identifying the areas where the government desires investments, he said, "You can see the optimism when India rises in key business ratings, particularly the Ease of Doing Business ratings of the World Bank"

India made a significant progress in October last year when it climbed 14places to rank 63rd among 190 nations in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking. Now the government has its eyes on the 50th spot. 

"Every year, we are reaching record highs in Foreign Direct Investment. Each year is significantly higher than the earlier one," he said, Giving examples, he added that FDI inflow in India in 2019-20 was $74 billion. "This is an increase of 20 per cent from the year before that," he added.

The summit was organized by the US-India Business Council and is intended to build a platform to bring the two countries together in building a post-coronavirus recovery agenda.

It was a virtual summit which was attended by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, foreign minister S Jaishankar, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, commerce and industry and railways minister Piyush Goyal and government officials from the US and India.

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