Gujarat's GIFT City expects to garner $50 bn biz annually

With Sebi finalising norms for the country's first IFSC, Gujarat's GIFT City expects to tap business worth $50 billion annually that India has been losing to global financial hubs like Singapore and Dubai.

GIFT City also expects other regulators, RBI and IRDA, to come out with their norms in the coming days for the banking and insurance entities, respectively, which would set up shop in the proposed International Financial Services Centre.

Capital markets regulator Sebi yesterday approved norms for setting up of stock exchanges and other capital market infrastructure in such centres, beginning with GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tec-city).

"GIFT City has a potential to bring back $50 billion annually which we are losing out to other global hubs, " its MD and CEO Ramakant Jha told PTI.

"Sebi has approved the norms for financial institutions setting up shop at GIF City in Ahmedabad.

Now we, are expecting guidelines from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) by end of this month," he added.

Jha said that such centres will help to check the flight of trading in rupee and Indian securities to such offshore financial hubs.

The new norms allow companies incorporated outside India to raise money in foreign currencies by issuance and listing of their equity shares on the stock exchanges within the IFSC, where individual and institutional investors from India and abroad, including NRIs, would be allowed to trade.

The IFSC regulatory regime would allow the Indian and foreign stock exchanges to set up separate bourses within the IFSC as subsidiaries, while market entities from India and abroad would be allowed to operate there by providing issuance and trading in depository receipts and debt securities of domestic as well as overseas companies.

GIFT City was conceptualised as a pet project of the Gujarat government when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the state's chief minister.

It would be the country's first IFSC, with which top bourses BSE and NSE have already signed MoUs for setting up international exchanges there.

In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced that the regulations for GIFT City would be issued in March.