Finance Minister: Jindal SAW seeks relief for miners, GST rollout

By Indresh Batra, Managing Director, Jindal SAW 

The Union Budget for the 2012-13 fiscal would hopefully focus on withholding tax issue. We expect the Budget to provide relief to the miners, whose margins are already under pressure due to the latest hike in export duty on the key steel-making ingredient to 30%. Also, we anticipate that industry will not face hike in export duty.
To enhance investments, foreign investment in infrastructure needs to be promoted by easing norms for entry of foreign funds. We hope the government would roll out and implement a full GST and also eliminate FBT.
We would like to see the cost of borrowing in the infrastructure space to be reduced by the minister which would be beneficial for developing infrastructure rapidly. With a need to have a sound infrastructure, we expect the government to focus on the same. Going forward we expect steel prices to remain firm on account of strong demand lead by domestic markets coupled recovering global economies. We believe this scenario would be positive for steel companies. No clear regulatory framework from Government of India with regards to environmental policies and land acquisition policies still leaves ambiguity to foreign investment.
The Union Budget 2012-13 is a vital opportunity as it