Invest India, a joint effort of industry associations, the Centre and State governments to woo foreign investments, has yielded encouraging results. According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the country recorded $60.97 billion FDI inflow in 2017-18, an increase of 69 per cent over 2013-14 when the total FDI inflow was $36.05 billion.
Invest India is currently working with 907 companies, with an indicated investment worth $114 billion and employment of 1,832,551, extending end-to-end facilitation support. Out of these, investments worth $21 billion and 117,252 employments have been realised till February 2019, the Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha.
Invest India was formed in 2009 under Section 25 of the Companies Act 1956 with 49 per cent equity by then Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry and 51 per cent shareholding by FICCI. Invest India acts as National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency and first point of reference for investors in India.
The current shareholding pattern of Invest India has 51 per cent equity by industry associations ( that is, 17 per cent each of FICCI, CII and Nasscom) and the remaining 49 per cent by the Centre and 19 State governments.
“ Invest India has responded to 169,230 business requests during the period from September 2014 till date and is actively working with several States to build capacity and strengthen existing Investment Promotion Agencies as well as bring in global best practices in investment targeting, promotion and facilitation areas” the Ministry said in reply to the question asked in the Rajya Sabha.
The Ministry, in another reply, said that to promote FDI, the government has put in place an investor-friendly policy, wherein except for a small negative list, most sectors are open for 100 per cent FDI under the automatic route. The policy on FDI is reviewed on an ongoing basis, to ensure that India remains an attractive and investor-friendly destination.
Policy changes
“Changes are made in the policy after having intensive consultations with stakeholders, including apex industry chambers, associations, representatives of industries/groups and other organisations taking into consideration their views/comments. Further, FDI is largely a matter of private business decisions,” the Ministry added.
FDI inflows depend on a host of factors such as the availability of natural resource, market size, infrastructure, political and general investment climate as well as macro-economic stability and investment decision of foreign investors.