In the 12th Five Year Plan, the Government of India targets to achieve a 9-9.5 percent GDP growth. The Government also recognizes that the investment in infrastructure sectors is critical for achieving and sustaining this growth. A trillion dollar target is envisaged as investment in infrastructure sectors during the plan period.
Given the long gestation period for the infrastructure projects, long term sources of funding is required in order for the projects to be sustainable and cost effective. It is in this context that the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) decided to take a timely initiative and organized a Conference on this pertinent issue. The Conference "Creating an Enabling Framework for 1 Trillion $ Investment in Next 5 years" was aimed at highlighting the challenges involved in infrastructure financing and suggesting the reform agenda. The Conference brought together perspectives from different stakeholders in the infrastructure sector including Private Sector Developers, Financial Investors, Bankers, Advisers and the various relevant ministries and agencies of the Government.
The speakers during the conference comprised of industry experts and leaders shared their knowledge, experience and suggestions through keynote presentations and various panel discussions. During these sessions, various relevant issues and recommendations related to investment in the infrastructure sector were discussed. A common theme which emerged across various sessions was that in order to meet the $1 Trillion funds requirement, there is an urgent need to widen sources of funding from overseas markets, and long term funders such as insurance and pension funds. Deepening of existing funding sources was also discussed.
The discussions on various thematic topics brought up a number of deliberations, issues and recommendations which have been presented in this paper.