Doha: Highlighting India's "investment- friendly policies", Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday invited Qatar's companies to "grab" the vast opportunities for business, especially in the infrastructure sector, while promising to remove "bottlenecks" identified by them.
On the second day of his visit to the oil-rich Gulf nation, he held an hour-long closed-door interaction with top business leaders of Qatar, telling them about the work done by his government over the last two years to facilitate the ease of doing business. Qatar's business community had some questions related to rules and and clearances, to which Modi said his government had changed rules and norms to enable easier Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in a number of sectors, sources said.
He specifically mentioned sectors like railways, defence, manufacturing and food processing. He also spoke about the big opportunity existing in the tourism sector. The Prime Minister told them that his government will continue to work for easing the norms and rules further to make it more easier to do business in India. Inviting investments from Qatar's companies, he said that India is a "land of opportunities and they should grab it". In this context, he underlined the fact that India and Qatar have close ties and physically too the two countries are located close to each other. "India is a land of opportunity. I have come to personally invite you to take advantage of this opportunity," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup tweeted, quoting Modi.
"All of you recognise the potential of India. I will address the bottlenecks you have identified," Modi told the business leaders. Addressing the meeting, the Prime Minister said, "there is a vast potential for Qatar investment authority to increase its investment in India, keeping in view India's huge investment needs and investment-friendly policies."