GIFT City: A Singapore in Modi’s Gujarat
Technology
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City is a planned business district in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The city was conceptualized in 2009, recognizing the potential of the state as an emerging IT and Financial Services hub.
Today, after more than a decade, the city - India’s one of a kind - remains a patchwork of state-of-the-art facilities & under-construction centers. Today, the city is struggling to answer questions relating to its existence and operations at full capacity.
What is the USP?
The GIFT Special Economic Zone targets business segments like offshore banking, capital markets, offshore insurance, offshore asset management, IT and BPO services along with ancillary services.
Despite the fact that it is located in India, it is considered an offshore jurisdiction for most regulatory purposes. This means that most local laws, like tariffs and other regulations, don’t apply (just like Singapore) and facilitate capital flows without any restrictions.
Emulating Singapore
A freely convertible currency, low tax regimes, minimal regulations and speedy dispute regulation is what a foreign investor looks for. This is exactly what helped Singapore to become one of the top three financial hubs in the world. India’s GIFT city draws inspiration from its Asian friend and aspires to become a world class central business hub.
Silver lining in 2021: A dozen proposals since 2021
GIFT is India's first operational smart city and International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). It received a dozen proposals in April 2021 despite the economic slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent proposals include Singapore Stock Exchange’s first subsidiary in India and five fund management entities including DSP Asset Managers, Kedaara Capital and Rising Fintech among others.
Proposed funding model in June 2021
India is planning to adopt Singapore's Variable Capital Company (VCC) model for investment funds at the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in the GIFT City with a separate legislation that is not part of the Companies Act, 2013. Singapore’s VCC aims to provide flexibility by facilitating fund operations and catering to the needs of global funds, reap economies of scale, achieve cost efficiencies and facilitate re-domiciliation.
India’s version of VCC: Work in progress
GIFT officials are deliberating on the new structure that aims to enable effective segregation and ring-fencing of different pools of assets, the ability to issue different classes of shares, altering fund’s capital structure without regulatory approvals, the freedom to choose accounting standards for different funds with varied characteristics and the ability to wind up quickly. The viability of the factors is yet to be assessed fully.
Recognition on global stage
The latest Global Financial Centres Index, London, dated September 2020 already places IFSC at GIFT City right at the top amongst 15 centers globally, which are likely to gain greater significance in the next 24 months.
The way ahead
In the Union Budget 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reaffirmed the government’s commitment to develop the IFSC at GIFT City.
In addition to the tax incentives already provided, the FM proposed a slew of measures:
Tax holiday for capital gains for aircraft leasing companies
Tax exemption for aircraft lease rentals paid to foreign lessors
Tax incentive for relocating foreign funds
Exemption to investment divisions of foreign banks in IFSC
How rich is Jeff Bezos?
Business
Jeffrey Princeston Bezos, aka Jeff Bezos, has stepped down as CEO to an executive position at Amazon. In his tenure, he has captured massive wealth.
Today, we examine the magnitude of wealth of the world’s richest man.
A little bit of history
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as a book-selling company, eventually expanding into online retail stores. However, it wasn’t until the launch of Amazon Web Services that the company would realise its true potential.
JB net worth
There’s rich, and then there’s Jeff Bezos
To truly understand the magnitude of wealth, we need to understand the scales. So to put into perspective:
A thousand seconds is 16 minutes
A million seconds is 11 days
A billion seconds is 31 years
Basically, if Jeff Bezos started donating USD 1 million every day, it would take him 547 years to dispose of his income, assuming he doesn't earn anything during this time.
Now that we understand our scales...
Jeff Bezos is currently valued around USD 200 billion. Comparing to his adversaries:
But really, how rich is he?*
Jeff Bezos roughly makes INR 2 lakh per minute which is slightly less than the average salary an Indian makes in a year.
After divorcing Jeff Bezos, Mackenzie Scott became the 12th richest person in the world at the time and was the richest woman on earth. She is currently the 3rd richest female.
An Indian spending USD 1 is equivalent to Jeff Bezos spending USD 10 million.
*Of course, most of his earnings are tied to Amazon’s stock, but it is fair to use it for comparison.
Richest man in the modern world
Jeff Bezos has been regarded as the richest man in modern history. As he bids farewell to the CEO position and yeets away into space, we bid farewell to the man who made USD 24 billion during the pandemic.
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