What is so special about Gift City? Money has Linda, so give cities as
little voices in India, where many of the rules and red tape that governs
doing business in India are doing business in much of India.
Does not to blame. Now, one of the core concerns
investors have in India is that the rupee is not fully convertible.
Of course, for local policymakers, the reasons the rupee is not fully
convertible are prudential. They want to safeguard the livelihoods
and prevent extreme currency volatility. Gift is one that the market in India
where you can trade the rupee freely and that has allowed policy makers that has
allowed different banks to offer products that until now could only be
offered at places like the buy in Singapore.
These are hedging products. These are products for trade, finance
and a lot of derivative products as well.
So a lot of interesting things, interesting financial assets that could
only be offered abroad can now be offered on the soil of India.
Apart from that, how else is Gibbs different, what can investors do in gift
that is different? So until recently has Linda, for
example. Indian companies, good or legal, and
these aeroplanes, for example, from from abroad now, because policymakers have
carved out gift do to be a free market.
They are the allowed the design of products where you can now lease an
airline and give this sort of business to Indian companies.
If you do it by a gift. There are legislations being changed to
allow foreign universities to set up to set up local campuses.
If they do it while gift again, that allows them to bypass a lot of red tape
in the country. The plan is, of course, to create gift
into an international arbitration centre where disputes can be resolved right at
the scene of business. So there are a lot of developments that
policymakers are excited about. But one thing to remember is that there
is a lot of political capital backing. Gift of the project, of course, is a
flagship project of Prime Minister Modi. He conceptualized the project when he
was chief minister of the Gujarat state. And of course, now he's the prime
minister. So there's a lot of policy and there's a
lot of political backing this project. Jeanette Rose, I mean, what what are the
challenges facing gift? I know they're going to be too flippant
and that is that Gujarat doesn't allow alcohol and many young executives been
asked about whether they've had a drink there or not.
But aside from that, we've also got, you know, the lack of a city infrastructure.
Having me say, you know, give us a sense of what they have to do in the future to
get this up and running properly. Well, absolutely, Isha.
When you think of financial hubs, when you think of London, many think of
Singapore, you think of the buzz within these places.
You you think of everything that you can do after you finish work.
You can go to a pub. You can grab a drink with your mates.
Gift currently does not allow that. Infrastructure does not have that sort
of critical mass. Currently, there are about 20000
employees, policymakers, authorities we speak to
say that that critical mass will be achieved when gift hits about 50000
employees. But how do we get that?
No. Finance, of course, is notoriously
capital intensive, not necessarily labor intensive.
So authorities are betting that as more and more of these non-financial
companies set in, we're talking about consultants.
We're talking about lawyers. We will see the number of people within
gift rapidly increase. The ability that social infrastructure
being built that actually lends to the buzz of a financial hub.
We will see more people walking the streets.
Make no mistake, there already are beautiful gyms that people can use.
The roads are beautiful. They are wide there.
They lack a lot of the a lot a lot of the grain that Indian cities are known
for. It's just that we need people to come to
gift. And that's what policy makers across
India are working to it.