14-05-21 Daily-Odisha-OPSC Current Affairs

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik sought exemption of GST on purchase Vaccines for Covid-19 by the states for the Population between the age group of 18 to 45 years.

In a letter to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the chief minister also sought financial assistance to the states from cess and surcharges collected by the government of India.

Strengthening states financially will further strengthen the fight against the pandemic including provision of vaccinations, free treatment, undertaking preventive measures and other steps.

The has estimated to spend around Rs 2,000 crore to vaccinate around 2 crore population between the age group of 18 and 45 years.

Foreign direct (FDI) inflows into India rose 9.8% to a record $81.7 billion in 2020-21 on a gross basis on the back of record investment into companies such asReliance Jio.
Fresh Equity inflows are estimated to have increased by an impressive 19% to $59.6 billion, while reinvested earnings went up 14% to $16.2 billion.

Singapore was the top source, which is now followed by the United States with Mauritius once the dominant source of FDI due to tax benefits under the tax avoidance treaty pushed to the third spot.

In terms of Growth, inflows from Saudi Arabia. jumped from $90 million in 2019-20 to $2.8 billion last year. And with E-Commerce and IT being the major draw for overseas investors looking to tap into the India consumption story, computer Software and hardware emerged as the most attractive sector to invest, cornering nearly 44% of the FDI equity inflows. Next was construction (Infrastructure), which accounted for a 13% share. Among the states it was Gujarat that was the top recipient, according to the Centres data, accounting for 37% of the inflows, followed byMaharashtra(27%) and Karnataka (13%).

The government has been seeking to bolster FDI especially in the manufacturing sector and some of the investments are related to companies such asApples vendors andSamsungpumping in funds to set up bigger production facilities for mobiles and electronics goods.

The government has identified close to 1,000 companies and is working withInvest Indiato tap companies that are seeking to diversify their production bases.