Finance minister P Chidambaram on Saturday held a meetingwith Reserve Bank of India officials, including Governor D Subbarao, as part ofa series of engagements planned for the day with the central bank, marketregular Sebi and foreign investors to revive the economy.
The Finance Minister was accompanied by Economic AffairsSecretary Arvind Mayaram, Banking Secretary DK Mittal and Joint Secretary AnupWadhwan, who is in charge of capital markets at North Block.
Chidambaram is visiting the financial capital for the firsttime after taking over as Finance Minister on August 1 and it comes ahead ofCentral Bank's half-yearly credit policy review on October 30.
The meetings come on the heels of a raft of reforms in thepast three weeks which included liberalisation of the FDI policy in a host ofsectors like retail, aviation, insurance, and pension, apart from setting upthe Parthasarathi Shome panel to review the contentious Gaar provisions.
After the meeting with RBI, Chidambaram drove to the SebiBhawan where he is slated to chair a meeting of its board.
After his meeting with the market watchdog, the Ministerwill engage with the heads of the stock exchanges and the leaders of the mutualfund industry under the banner of the industry body Amfi at the Sebiheadquarters.
He will wrap up his visit with a meeting with leadingforeign institutional investors in the evening.
The meeting with FIIs assumes importance in the light of thegovernment decision to defer the implementation of the retro-tax proposal underthe general anti-avoidance rules (Gaar) that had raised concerns in the marketsand industry alike.
The Sebi meeting comes a day after a massive 15.5 per centcrash of the Nifty last morning due to an erroneous sell order placed by atrader at the brokerage Emkay Global which is being inquired into by the marketwatchdog.
