Well-capitalised insurance, pension cos to aid infra: HSBC

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Below is the edited transcript of her interview.

Q: How do you see the markets, rating agencies and foreign investors responding to the move made by the governments?

A: This is very positive step. Enhancing the capital of insurance and pension sector helps infrastructure as we get sectors which get better capitalized and by virtue of being better capitalized we see more capital entering long-term investment. In the project finance space there are large projects which require big and long term money.  So, we should be loading the growth of these sectors which are capital stars needing money with a view to get the infrastructure sector and the long term bonds that we need to fund infrastructure off the ground.

Q: According to the information available it is known that the infrastructure debt funds have also been given the go ahead by the cabinet, what is your view?

A: All this suggests that there is recognition that we need long term capital for infrastructure and we should not forget that both the insurance and pension bills assist in that and of course getting the infrastructure debt fund off the ground clearly helps in that direction. We are aware that we need this fund and we have bottlenecks in infrastructure right now. Funding has not been a major issue till date but it may become an issue in the near future and these steps are therefore critical if we want trillion dollars which is actually set out in the planning commission to be a reality.