Investment decisions rarely fail because people lack ambition. They fail because people lack context — a clear, honest picture of where the money is going and why it matters. That belief is what regularly brings Ashutosh Financial Services to the table with communities who are trying to make sense of markets far from home, and it was the spirit behind “Investment Opportunities in New Age India for NRIs,” a webinar held on 16th March 2024 for the Non-Resident Indian community based in Singapore.
The session was led by Daxesh Kothari and CA CFP Rajit Kothari, and it was designed specifically for NRIs weighing how much of their savings should flow back into India, and through which channels. For this audience, the questions are rarely academic. Singapore-based Indians often have surplus capital, a genuine emotional connection to India, and a nagging uncertainty about whether the country’s growth story translates into safe, accessible investment options from abroad. The webinar set out to address exactly that gap.
The discussion opened with a look at India’s macroeconomic position. The speakers pointed to GDP growth rates of 7.8%, 7.6%, and 8.4% across the first three quarters of the 2023-24 financial year, figures that stood well above those of Singapore, China, and the United States for the same year, and used this to frame India as the fastest-growing major economy among the world’s top twenty. Rather than treat that statistic as a headline, the session unpacked what sits behind it: a stable democratic government, a wave of tax and insolvency reforms, increasingly independent regulators across banking, capital markets, and insurance, and a judiciary seen as functioning independently of political pressure. These are the quieter structural factors that determine whether growth is durable rather than cyclical.
Demographics featured prominently too. With a population nearing 1.5 billion, of which 47% is under the age of 25, India has an unusually young, English-speaking, increasingly skilled workforce, paired with rising per-capita income and a rapid shift toward digital and formal financial participation. The speakers connected this to India’s high volume of digital payment transactions and its expanding internet base, arguing that consumption and financialisation are reinforcing each other. Naturally, an honest session on opportunity also has to sit with risk, and the speakers did not shy away from it. They discussed political continuity risk, elevated valuations in Indian equities and real estate, corporate governance standards, and the long-term trajectory of the rupee, noting that its depreciation against the US dollar and Singapore dollar has been fairly gradual over the past several years, and is expected to remain measured rather than sharp.
A significant portion of the session was devoted to GIFT City, India’s first International Financial Services Centre, located in Gujarat. For NRIs, its appeal lies in structure: investments can be made in US dollars, without the need to open a demat or bank account in India, and transactions routed through GIFT City are not subject to Indian tax implications in the way domestic investments are. The speakers also walked through the Family Investment Fund structure available within GIFT City, along with its tax concessions, for those looking to consolidate family wealth management under one formal vehicle.
Beyond GIFT City, the webinar covered the fuller landscape of routes available to NRIs — mutual funds, Portfolio Management Services, unlisted or pre-IPO equity, and Alternative Investment Funds — each explained in terms an investor could actually act on: minimum ticket sizes, liquidity, whether a demat account is required, and a realistic time horizon. A real example was used to illustrate how unlisted equity can perform: an investment in Tata Technologies shares made in February 2021, which grew close to sevenfold by March 2024. Tax treatment for Singapore-based investors was also addressed directly, including how the India-Singapore tax treaty applies to gains from Indian mutual funds and the documentation involved in claiming relief under it. Real estate, by contrast, was presented candidly as a less favoured option for most NRIs today, given its liquidity constraints and the practical difficulty of managing property from overseas.
What came through across the session was less a sales pitch for any single product and more an attempt to give attendees a framework: understand the macro backdrop, understand the specific mechanics of each investment route, and understand your own tax and repatriation obligations before committing capital. That kind of grounding is what separates informed decisions from hopeful ones. Sessions like this reflect an ongoing effort to keep that knowledge accessible to Indians abroad, one conversation at a time.
