Qatar eyeing $1.5 billion stake in RIL's Jio Fiber: Report

Sovereign fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is in talks with Reliance Industries Ltd for an investment of $1.5 billion (over Rs 11,200 crore) in an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) controlling the company’s fibre-optic assets, the Mint reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman Mukesh Ambani rolled out the Jio Fiber (aka GigaFiber) broadband service on September 5, 2019. This year, at the company's annual general meet, Ambani said that Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch and that once this 5G solution is proven at India scale, Jio Platforms will be well-positioned to export it to other operators globally too, as a complete managed services.

Qatar’s likely investment in Jio Fibre comes after recent exemptions in income tax by the Finance Ministry for sovereign funds investing in India.

While presenting the Budget 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a proposal to incentivise the investment made by the sovereign wealth fund of foreign governments in the priority sectors. "I propose grant 100 percent tax exemption to their interest, dividend and capital gains incomes in respect of investment made in infrastructure and other notified sectors before March 31, 2024, and with a minimum lock-in period of three years," she had said.

The CBDT notification on this came in the first week of July.