TLI Staff
New Delhi: Even as major world economies were roiled by the pandemic, global investors continued to bet big on India pumping in $67.54 billion during April-December period of FY21.
“It is the highest ever for the first ninth months of a financial year and 22% higher as compared to the first ninth months of 2019-20 (US$ 55.14 billion),” Commerce & Industry Ministry said in a statement.
With domestic private investment remaining subdued, FDI has been a major driver of economic growth in the country. It has been an important source of non-debt finance for the economic development of India.
The government has taken a slew of measures in the last few years to improve Ease of Doing Business in the country and it has yielded favourable results. Many sectors such as defence and insurance have been thrown open for foreign investors with the FDI cap either completely removed or relaxed substantially.
“The intent all this while has been to make the FDI policy more investor friendly and remove the policy bottlenecks that have been hindering the investment inflows into the country,” the government press release said.
As per official data, FDI equity inflow grew by 40% to $ 51.47 billion in the first 9 months of FY21 compared to the
year ago period of $ 36.77 billion.
“FDI inflow increased by 37% in 3rd quarter of 2020-21. It showed positive growth of 24% in the month of December, 2020 ($ 9.22 billion) compared to December, 2019 ($ 7.46 billion).
Reliance group’s Jio platform and retail arm have got huge attention from global tech giants with biggies like Facebook and Google buying equity stakes.
“Measures taken by the Government on the fronts of FDI policy reforms, investment facilitation and ease of doing business have resulted in increased FDI inflows into the country,” noted the government statement.
Picture courtesy: Embassy of Japan in India