India Boosts Green Finance: GIFT City to Host Fin-Tech Lab for Carbon Credits Trading

New Delhi/Gandhinagar: In a move to promote the trading of green credits, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced that the government plans to build a diverse fin-tech laboratory at GIFT City, which will be also used as a platform for such trading. She also expressed confidence that the direct listing of companies in GIFT City will be enabled at the earliest.

“India has a $10.1-trillion funding gap to meet its net zero commitment and asked International Financial Services Centres (IFSC) to set up a platform where green credits can be traded. GIFT City is ideally poised to be the gateway for financial and investment hubs and has an important role to play in fulfilling the vision for India to become a developed nation by 2047,” Sitharaman said, while addressing a seminar at Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2024.

In 2023, the government had decided to allow listed and unlisted companies to directly list themselves on the IFSC exchanges at GIFT City. Currently, Indian companies can access foreign equity markets only through issuing depository receipts or by listing their debt securities on foreign markets. The finance minister, however, suggested that there should be a platform located at the IFSC where green credits can be traded.

“The companies in India would be able to access global funds soon with direct listing on IFSC exchanges. The much-awaited direct listing of stock in Gift IFSC was announced earlier and we are going through the process in a systematic manner and I am confident that it will happen at the earliest. I would think the authorities here should work on getting a platform ready so that green credits can be sold by people who are planting trees,” the finance minister said.

“Miyawaki forests are coming up all over the country, some credits for that and any other practices that you do in afforestation or activities which are full of the green certification, meaning using renewable energy, solid waste management, and so on, should be able to first come here to say I have credits, which I wouldn’t want to sit, let it be traded. This place should be the place for getting those credits bought and sold,” Sitharaman said.