Doing Business in India 2020

India is a vast, populous, and diverse nation encompassing many different identities, languages, cultures, and religions. India is the seventh largest country by area and the second most populous country in the world.
In terms of its economic growth, India is one of the fastest growing economies of the world. However, these are intriguing times for the Indian economy. Rated as one of the most stable economies, India continues to shine amidst global gloom. Led by the Modi government, several economic, financial, and institutional reforms including the reforms leading to ease of doing business across states, have been implemented. India claiming the 63rd spot in World Bank’s recently released Ease of Doing Business rankings is a testimony to this fact. Moreover India has marked the biggest improvement recorded among 190 countries in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2020-Reforming to create jobs’ report. Furthermore, India jumped 22 ranks in last four years in the United Nation’s E-Governance Index.

Increase in the economic growth in India is majorly attributed to the sweep of changes that have been ushered by the governments both at the central and state level with some of the biggest changes being:

• Introduction of a unified indirect tax law system,
• Introduction of insolvency and bankruptcy code to turn around stressed assets and improve the flow of money in the economy [primarily through banking and financial institutions],
• Stabilization of government’s outlook towards imposing taxes on foreign investors, liberalization of the framework for foreign investment,
• Regulation of real estate market, which was largely considered fragmented and unorganised by enactment of the Real Estate Regulation Act [RERA],
• The state and central governments have also made changes to the various laws which deal more so with the compliances whereby they have streamlined the laws and brought them in line with the socio economic changes that have happened since the introduction of several of such laws and thus, have moved away from the age-old bureaucracy and red-tapism by removing physical interaction and interface vis-à-vis the government and progressing towards digital interfaces.

This document endeavours to lay down the fundamental legal regime regarding the conduct of business in India and resolves queries and issues normally raised by overseas investors. It is intended to act as a broad legal guide to aid your decision making process when deciding to invest, establish business entity and carry on operations in India.

Today, when the world is looking at India as an ideal business destination, we hope that this comprehensive document will prove to be very handy and useful to all the aspirants from global business fraternity and our professional associates throughout the world in their analysis and evaluation of business ventures and in strengthening decision making process