Jaitley meets RBI Central Board; discusses reduction of taxes for MSMEs along with other issues

New Delhi, Feb 13 (KNN) Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met the Central Board of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and discussed reduction of taxes for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector among other issues.

The Finance Minister in his address to the RBI Central Board on Saturday emphasised the focus of the Budget on the rural sector, housing and infrastructure while continuing on the path of fiscal discipline, besides introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and reduction of taxes for the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector.

In his Budget Speech, Jaitley had announced reduction of corporate tax for MSMEs with turnover upto Rs 50 crore from 30 per cent to 25 per cent.

The Board complimented the Finance Minister on the Budget.

The Board reviewed the current economic situation, global and domestic challenges and other specific areas of operations of the Reserve Bank of India.

Jaitley was accompanied by Arjun Ram Meghwal, Ministers of State, Finance. The meeting was also attended by Ashok Lavasa, Finance Secretary, Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, Secretary (Revenue), Neeraj Kumar Gupta, Secretary (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management) and Dr. Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser.

The 563rd meeting of the Central Board meeting was chaired by Dr. Urjit R.Patel, Governor. Besides Deputy Governors R. Gandhi, S.S. Mundra, N.S.Vishwanathan and Dr. Viral Acharya of the Reserve Bank of India, the other Directors of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank present at the meeting included, Natrajan Chandrasekaran, Bharat Doshi, Sudhir Mankad, Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Dr. Ashok Gulati and Manish Sabharwal.

The Government nominee directors Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs and Anjuly Chib Duggal, Secretary, Department of Financial Services were present. (KNN Bureau)