INDIA is emerging as a big competitor to China and New Delhi’s corporate tax rate cuts makes it attractive for investors, according to US President Donald Trump’s top economic advisor. Addressing reporters at the White House on Thursday, Larry Kudlow, head of the National Economic Council, said: “People are losing trust in China and India becomes a big competitor. And if I’m not mistaken India has slashed its corporate tax rate.

 

“So it may be a very attractive investment place and India is a great ally of the US.” Kudlow said that he had recommended the corporate tax cut to Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met him 18 months ago. India cut the corporate tax rate last September from 30 per cent to 22 per cent for companies existing at that time and from 25 per cent to 15 per cent for manufacturing new companies.

 

The exodus of American companies out of China would be principally technology, pharmaceutical or pharmaceutical supply chain-type companies, he said. “I know of a number of plans.” The attitudes of US business towards China is changing because of “the experience with the China flu and lack of transparency and assistance to the rest of the world”, Kudlow said.

 

‘TikTok may cut off Chinese ties’: US President Donald Trump’s economic advisor Larry Kudlow has said that TikTok may cut off ties to its Chinese parent and become a 100 per cent American company to circumvent demands to ban it as India has done. “I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company,” he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

 

The US has not made a final decision on whether to ban it - which has been suggested by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he said. TikTok being divested by ByteDance Technology Company “is a much better solution than banning or pushing away”, said Kudlow, who is Director of National Economic Council.