NEW DELHI: Kotak Mahindra group founder Uday Kotak on Friday said India is transforming from a country of savers to investors and laid out a detailed financial sector model for the country to achieve 9% annual growth and become a $30 trillion economy by 2047.
The veteran banker also said that India should avoid a retrospective tax and regulatory regime. He added that two areas which need urgent focus for the country’s aspiration are acquisition financing and streamlining of the IBC/ NCLT process.
Explaining the transformation from savers to investors, Kotak said that in the early 80s, the Indian saver had low confidence in financial assets versus gold and land. He added that slowly the saver moved some part to bank deposits, UTI and LIC and even in the 90s, investing in equities was considered “speculative”.
“The Indian saver’s interest in markets improved after the global financial crisis. That saver is now savouring the joys of investing. Mutual fund platforms, cash equities and derivatives markets, insurance funds, global private equity in India, other platforms like AIFs, lower tax regime for equity, have all converted a saver to an investor,” said Kotak on ‘X’.