Dubai

A top Indian jewellery retailer will invest USD 25 million in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious Gujarat International Finance Tec-City project which aims to create the first global financial hub in India.

Pure Gold Jewellers, which claims to be the only World Diamond Mark (WDM) certified company in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and India will invest in various projects of GIFT City. It has 125 stores across 12 countries.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech last month announced that regulations for investors in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City project (GIFT) will be in place by March 2015.

According to Firoz Merchant, Founder and Chairman of Pure Gold Jewellers, an investment friendly tax regime like the GIFT opens endless possibilities for India’s economy and the cost of transaction for businesses like ours will be more affordable.

“We decided to invest in the various projects of GIFT City as we see a huge potential in this for jewellery companies like ours in the commodity sector to avail of cost effective operations that will aid us in our expansion plans in India and also globally,” Merchant said.

“With the support of the Honourable Prime Minister and the government as highlighted in the recent budget announcement, this is a project that has a strong backing and I firmly believe that GIFT will be a success story,” he added.

GIFT City is a 50:50 joint venture between Gujarat Urban Development Company Limited (GUDCL) and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) Limited and is a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he had proposed in 2007 as Chief Minister of Gujarat.

While announcing the launch of the project, Modi said the vision of Gujarat would be incomplete without capitalising on the in-house financial business acumen.

The project has generated great interest in the industry.

India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on February 26, 2015 with the GIFT City to establish an International Exchange at GIFT City which will provide and electronic platform for facilitating trading, clearing and settlement of securities.

It will also explore possibility of starting trading facilities in different asset classes like equities, interest rates, currencies, among others and their derivatives once the guidelines are being issued by the government and the regulators.

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