India to woo sovereign funds to aid infrastructure projects

As India firms ups its plans to set up a multi-billion dollar sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to finance big-ticket investment projects, the finance ministry is simultaneously working on a plan to channelise investments from the 30-plus sovereign wealth funds across the world to facilitate greater foreign direct investment (FDI) into India’s infrastructure sector, Anupama Airy reports.

As India firms ups its plans to set up a multi-billion dollar sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to finance big-ticket investment projects, the finance ministry is simultaneously working on a plan to channelise investments from the 30-plus sovereign wealth funds across the world to facilitate greater foreign direct investment (FDI) into India’s infrastructure sector. The government has already planned periodic road shows for attracting investments from big international investors and sovereign funds across the world, said sources. As much as $5 trillion is staked in these 30-odd global SWFs with Abu Dhabi having the biggest wealth fund with a corpus of over $600 billion.

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“Individual foreign investors and sovereign wealth funds that have been set up by various nations could also be targeted during finance minister P Chidambaram’s forthcoming visit to Frankfurt, Singapore and London,” a senior government official told HT. “Governments with extra money have become major players in the global financial markets through their sovereign wealth funds and our aim through such road shows is to promote India’s growth story and attract investors to participate in some of our big ticket investment projects.”