Tirupati: Finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy said the state has been at the top in ease of doing business for the last four years and it is at 4th place in exports improving its position from the 7th place in 2019. He participated in the trade advisory committee meeting organised by the Chittoor commercial taxes division at SV University Senate hall on Thursday.
Addressing the meeting and later briefing the media, the finance minister said that as the state government is resorting to friendly business policies, it has been continuously securing top place in ease of doing business index. To improve the export potential further to reach second place, the works of Visakha-Chennai and Chennai-Bengaluru industrial corridors have been going on speedily. Rajendranath Reddy said that the responsibility of the welfare of people lies with the government and it gets revenue through commercial taxes.
In democracy, all governments are mainly dependent on commercial taxes income. The Chief Minister has high regard for traders and wanted to get tax revenue from them in a friendly manner for which he suggested the setting up of the trade advisory committee. It is aimed at resolving the issues of businessmen, he said. While the first meeting of this committee was held in Anantapur earlier, the second meeting has been organised in Tirupati.
Due to the Covid pandemic, the trading activity across the world had come to a standstill which has resulted in many adversities. Yet, since the onus lies on the government to look after the welfare of the people, it has been implementing several welfare schemes, Rajendranath Reddy said.
Saying that despite doing good the opposition parties have been resorting to criticism of the government, he said that the state government has been setting up 176 skill development centres to train the youth for skill oriented jobs.
The trade advisory meetings will be held once in every three months to take note of the suggestions and grievances of the traders and industrialists which will be taken up to the central GST meet for suitable solutions.
Deputy CM K Narayana Swamy, MP Dr M Gurumoorthy, finance department special chief secretary SS Rawat, chief commissioner Girija Shankar, commissioner Ravi Shankar, additional commissioners Nagendra, Balaji, joint commissioner Stephenson, chartered accountants, traders and industrialists participated in the meeting.