Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said Indian companies can now go in for direct listing on foreign exchanges as well as on the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) bourse in Ahmedabad.

The nod, which came after three years of announcement as part of the Covid relief package, will enable domestic companies to access foreign funds by listing their shares on various exchanges overseas. A proposal regarding this was first floated as part of the liquidity package announced during the pandemic in May 2020.

"A direct listing of securities by domestic companies will now be permissible in foreign jurisdictions. I'm also pleased to announce that the government has taken a decision to enable direct listing of listed and unlisted companies on the IFSC exchange. So, this is a major step forward. This will facilitate access to global capital and better valuation, Sitharmanan said here.

The minister was speaking at an event to launch AMC Repo Clearing and a corporate debt market development fund to help deepen the corporate bond market.

Further, she called for a regulatory impact assessment so that regulated entities in particular and the markets in general can better understand the fallout of their decisions.

She also asked financial market regulators to focus on the quality, proportionality and the effectiveness of their decisions so that companies find further ease in doing their business.

Urging large municipal bodies to tap the debt market for their funding needs, Sitharaman said the government has been and will continue to incentivise cities to improve their credit ratings so that they get better pricing for their bonds.

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