Vodafone Group CEO to visit India Sep 24

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SME Times News Bureau | 20 Sep, 2014
British telecom major Vodafone Group Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao will be visiting India Sep 24.

This is Colao's first visit to India after Vodafone India became 100 percent subsidiary of the parent company.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs Feb 6, 2014 approved the proposal of Vodafone to buy minority shareholders in its Indian arm for Rs.10,141 crore by raising its stake to 100 percent. In April the company announced that its Indian operations has become 100 percent subsidiary of the parent company.

According to sources, Colao so far does not have any scheduled meeting with the Indian Prime Minister.

Vodafone, the world's second largest telecom company, has taxation issues with Indian government.

Recently, Vodafone India Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director Marten Pieters said while speaking at the Economist India Summit: "Yes, it is difficult to do business in India... that's the general perception I think of foreign companies and that is not just in telecom,"

Pieters, however, added that the process for doing business in India can be made easier by just removing a few impediments.

Slapped with a Rs.20,000 crore retrospective capital gains tax after it acquired the telecom assets of an Indian company in 2007, Vodafone has earlier maintained that it will continue with the ongoing international arbitration to resolve the dispute.

Vodafone entered India in 2007 by buying Hutchison Whampoa's assets in a USD 11 billion deal.

"We note the finance minister's announcement that existing cases arising from the 2012 retrospective tax law should follow the lawful process in which they are currently being adjudicated," the company had said in a statement after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's maiden budget speech.

"Vodafone will, therefore, continue the process of international arbitration initiated under the India-Netherlands Bilateral Investment Treaty," the statement added.

Pierters also said the telecom industry in India is in a mess.

"The telecom industry, if you look at it from international perspective, is a mess in India ... And it seems to come from this concept which has been developed in the past that the more competition, the better," he said.