Indian industry lobby chief pushes for quicker dispute resolution to boost investment

NEW DELHI: India must resolve investor disputes faster and ease working conditions for foreign firms to help the country compete for global capital and accelerate growth toward 8%-10%, the president of the Confederation of Indian Industry said.

“Arbitration has got to close in a matter of months,” R. Mukundan, the head of the industrial chamber, said in an interview with Reuters on Monday, adding India needed to build its capacity to resolve disputes to match jurisdictions such as Singapore.

Referring to rules requiring investors to spend up to five years pursuing domestic remedies before international arbitration, Mukandan said: “Even three years is too long.”

His comments come as India considers changes to its 2016 bilateral investment treaty framework to attract more foreign capital from partner nations. One part of this treaty is a requirement that foreign investors exhaust domestic legal remedies for five years before seeking international arbitration.

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India has received weak net foreign direct investment in recent years at $7.7 billion in the year ended March 2026, compared to $20.2 billion for Vietnam and $24.2 billion for Indonesia in 2024.

Mukundan, who also serves as chief executive of Tata Chemicals, said India needed to sharpen its overall investment climate to compete with other destinations on the ease and cost of doing business.

He said India would continue to attract investment and grow, but faster expansion would require deeper reforms.

“Investment will still happen,” he said. “But if you want to go to eight, nine, or 10% growth, we need to address these, we need to reform even more.”

Mukundan also said industry was awaiting the conclusion of an India-U.S. trade deal, which could give India access to technology, capital, investment and markets.