Everything You Need to Know About Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT)

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) is an under-development central business district in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. It is India’s first functional greenfield smart city and worldwide financial administrations community, which the Government of Gujarat advanced as a greenfield project. GIFT City is another Financial and Technology Gateway of India for the World.

The city is around 12 km from Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel International Airport and is situated on the banks of the Sabarmati River. The city is planned so occupants can stroll to work, and incorporates business, financial and residential buildings. GIFT City will have a metro station interconnecting it to the Ahmedabad metro network by March 2024.

GIFT City is a complete development on 886 acres of land with 62 mn sq. ft. of Built-Up region which incorporates Office spaces, Residential Apartments, Schools, Hospital, Hotels, Clubs, Retail, and different Recreational areas, which makes this City a really “Wall to Work” City. GIFT City comprises a favorable Multi-Service SEZ (Special Economic Zone) and a selective Domestic Area.

This City is a ‘Vertical City’ that will enhance land region utilization for development. This city is located along the Sabarmati River and is associated with both the business capital (Ahmedabad) and political capital (Gandhinagar) of Gujarat State-the engine of India’s growth. The city is associated with 4-6 lane State and National Highways. A double corridor metro framework is being built to associate GIFT City to the close-by air terminal and different parts of Ahmedabad.

The idea for GIFT was considered during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investor Summit 2007 and the underlying planning was finished by East China Architectural Design and Research Institute (ECADI), which was planned much like modern-day Shanghai. GIFT City’s plan is for 359 hectares (886 acres) of land to have roughly 110 structures with 5,800,000 m2 (62,000,000 sq ft) of the built-up region, of which around 67% is business, 22% is residential and 11% is social facilities.

The Phases of Development

As of April 2021, 190,000 m2 (2,000,000 sq ft) of commercial space is functional and another 280,000 m2 (3,000,000 sq ft) is a work in progress. As of April 2021, a venture of ₹10,500 crores has effectively been submitted for GIFT City. The city has a complete development model, which has been spread out in three stages, every one of which is planned as coordinated, sustainable development. The initial stage incorporates the improvement of office space, residential, school, lodging, and clubs. As of April 2021, around 225 units/organizations are operational and more than 12,000 experts are employed in the city.

Two 28-story commercial towers called GIFT One and GIFT Two have been completed. Tendering for the development of more towers is happening. This stage will likewise incorporate the structure of basic infrastructure. As a feature of Phase-I development, around 780,000 square meters (8.4×106 sq ft) of the developed region has as of now been allowed from the 1,200,000 square meters (13×106 sq ft) accessible for business, residential, and social use. On 11 September 2019, Tapan Ray, managing director and Group CEO of GIFT City, said the city had drawn in around ₹11,000 crores of investment.

The second stage construction has effectively started and the Hiranandani Signature building, which hosts India International trade, has been finished. The WTC is under development. New street access to GIFT City has been constructed.

The third stage’s construction and initiation of the completely built city will happen somewhere between 2020 and 2023. The fourth stage, named “The Enpeoplement”, will fill the city with humans.

At GIFT City, India’s first city-level district cooling system (DCS) is operational. The first phase of this DCS has been in operation since April 2015, with a capacity of 10,000 Ton of refrigeration; it reduces the operational cost by 30-40%.

(DCS) is functional at GIFT City. The primary period of this DCS, with a limit of 10,000 Ton of refrigeration has been in activity since April 2015; it lessens the functional expense by 30-40% and evades the capital expense of carrying out individual climate control systems in each structure.

Government’s Take

“GIFT IFSC has featured prominently, which reflects the importance Government of India attaches to develop a vibrant and business-friendly international financial services ecosystem within the country to aid and assist the realization of our goal of a USD 5 Trillion economy. The establishment and empowerment of IFSCA as a unified financial regulator duly supported by several measures, to put in place a competitive regulatory framework and tax regime, including greater ease of doing business have reinforced the position of GIFT IFSC as a gateway for global capital flows into and out of India,” said Injeti Srinivas, chairman, IFSC Authority (IFSCA).

The government had given tax exemption in the union budget of 2021, to aviation leasing and financing. The budget for 2022 stretched out the tax exemption to shipping. Another step towards making IFSC efficient from a tax perspective is fresh incentives for derivatives instruments and portfolio management services. Last year the budget had given enormous tax exceptions to the fund business which has come to a result of over 20 funds being set up at IFSC. Last year’s financial plan had additionally permitted tax exception for funds who are willing to domicile themselves from different nations like Mauritius, Hong Kong, Singapore to IFSC. Up to this point, this exchange of fund designs to IFSC has not occurred.

In Summary

Considering that extent of GIFT IFSC is bound to financial administrations, disciplines connected with financial management and fintech might be permitted at first. Assuming the GIFT experiment is effective, it could likewise be a layout for foreign colleges to work in other Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in the future.