FM's Japan visit to woo investors

New Delhi (PTI): After selling India story to investors in Hong Kong, Singapore and European countries, Finance Minister P Chidambaram is now leaving for Japan on Monday to attract foreign investment. Chidambaram would meet his Japanese counterpart and institutional investors during his three-day official visit to Japan, sources said. Finance Minister will be accompanied by Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram and Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan, they said. Chidambaram is likely to talk about steps taken by the government to speed up large projects and measures to bring down fiscal deficit. He would also seek investments into various sectors, mainly infrastructure for which the government has pegged expenditure at nearly $1 trillion during the 12th Plan (2012-17). He may also highlight the measures proposed in the Budget 2013-14 for markets and investment to help the economy grow at 6.1-6.7 per cent next year. India is betting big on foreign resources to finance the CAD, which has widened to record high of 6.7 per cent in October-December quarter of the current fiscal driven by heavy oil and gold imports and muted exports. Japan has been a key partner of India in the latter's efforts to boostinfrastructure development. In his earlier meetings with the investor community in Hong Kong, Singapore, Frankfurt and London in January, Chidambaram had expressed India's commitment to economic reforms.