Union Budget 2007-08 Presented: Proposals for Capital Markets and Private Equity

The Finance Minister of India Mr. P Chidambaram has presented the Union Budget for the year 2007-08 today in the Parliament. Some of the proposals suggested for the capital markets are:PAN to be made sole identification number for all participants in securities market with an alpha-numeric prefix or suffix to distinguish a particular kind of accountIdea of Self Regulating Organizations (SRO) to be taken forward for different market participants under regulations to be made by SEBIMutual funds to be permitted to launch and operate dedicated infrastructure fundsIndividuals to be permitted to invest in overseas securities through Indian mutual fundsShort-selling settled by delivery, and securities lending and borrowing to facilitate delivery, by institutions to be allowedEnabling mechanism to be put in place to permit Indian companies to unlock a part of their holdings in group companies for meeting their financing requirements by issue of exchangeable bondsRate of dividend distribution tax to be raised from 12.5% to 15% on dividends distributed by companies and to 25% on dividends paid by money market mutual funds and liquid mutual funds to all investorsIn case of venture capital funds, pass-through status will be granted to those VCFs only in respect of investments in venture capital undertakings in biotechnology; information technology relating to hardware and software development; nanotechnology; seed research and development; research and development of new chemical entities in the pharmaceutical sector; dairy industry; poultry industry; and production of bio-fuels. In order to promote business tourism, this benefit also will be granted to those VCFs that invest in hotel-cum-convention centres of a certain description and size