Prime Minister Modi is getting ready to hard-sell India to investors in the US, and IIFL says he won't have a tough job on his hands. IIFL is also confident that the Sensex could well hit 30,000 by the year end. Speaking to CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan from the sidelines of India Investment Forum in New York, Prabodh Agarwal, R Venkataraman of India Infoline and Brij Jairath, MD, Wealth Mgmt & Brokerage Svcs said that foreign investors continue to remain upbeat on India, but the pace at which reforms are being executed is a bit of worry.
Below is the excerpt from the interview
Q: Are foreign investors still upbeat about the India story?
Venkataraman: The feeling we are getting from ground zero is that investors are very excited about the India story. Indian economy is clearly on the upswing. The government is taking steps to kick start the economy, consumer confidence is coming back, business confidence is coming back. So, in a nutshell investors are quite excited about India.
What is disappointing them is the pace of action on ground level. Some investors are asking questions about the actual steps taken by the government in contentious areas like land reforms, labour reforms, natural resource reform. Those are the questions that remain in the investors mind, but to summarise they are quite enthused about the India story.
Q: They are enthused but they are waiting for more policy action and more policy certainty. In that sense what is it going to mean for FII flows?
Venkataraman: In our opinion FII flows will continue unabated. That is simply because India is shining like a beacon of excellence around the globe. We are seeing earnings growth coming back to India. India is a large economy. We have a population of 120 crore. So, we have excellent demographics if you compare to rest of the developed world especially Europe which is having a negative demographics problem.So, people are quite enthused about India.
Q: What is the sense that you are getting in terms of how the coal verdict by the Supreme Court is going to be seen or read by foreign institutional investors?
Agarwal: Foreign investors believe that the new government would be able to sort out many of the problems that India has been facing for many years. In a way this coal verdict is being seen as a cleansing process as you are saying. It is a short term negative for sure but the good thing is that the Supreme Court has allowed the mines to operate for the next 6 months within which the auctions would be held. So, I guess they would definitely find a way not to disrupt existing production and find way to auction and increase production over the next two-three years. So, it is definitely positive and investors are not too concerned about it.
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