Business / Looking at reforms in FDI, mining to promote economic activity: Goyal

New Delhi: The government is looking at reforms in various sectors like foreign direct investment, mining, banking and capital market to promote economic activities in the country, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday said.

The government is also looking at simplifying domestic approvals and bureaucratic processes to make it easier for industry to do business, he added.

"We have significant items on the table. We are looking at further reform in the mining sector, we are looking at opening up FDI in certain sectors where there are some constraints, foreign investment will be permitted.

"We are looking at reform in terms of domestic approvals and bureaucratic processes to try and simplify it and make it easier to do business, we will soon be coming out with a new industrial policy, with a new forest policy and several other initiatives to promote economic activities in a variety of ways," he said at India Global Week 2020.

The government is also looking at banking sector and capital market reforms. Therefore, the agenda is pretty vast and it is open to new ideas, Goyal said.

Talking about economic revival, he said a number of indicators are showing that economic activity has ramped up over the last 30-40 days.

The minister said that power consumption is back to 90 per cent, GST tax collection has improved, "So, I believe that we will be able to recoup very quickly".

"To my mind, we will be able to bring back the economy over the next 3-4 months to last year level and then get rapid growth in the economy," he said.

Talking about investments in railways, the minister said both global and Indian companies bid for projects and the electrification of Indian railways.

The 20 GW clean energy programme is going to be bid out and any company from around the world can come in and invest in PPP mode, own the projects and supply the power to railways, he said, adding going forward the Indian railways is opening up new opportunities.

"My own sense is that we will have at least USD 500  billion (worth) of projects being bid out by the Indian railways over the next 12 years or so for PPP," Railways Minister Goyal said.

He said that it is now open up for bidding 150 routes for private trains.

On banning Chinese apps, he said it was more of a security concern and all the companies have been asked to furnish certain details, which is proper legal practice that is going on.

India is always open to fair trade on the basis of reciprocity as it can not be proper that domestic goods and services do not get equal access and equal freedom to operate in the other country, he said.