Mauritius top FDI source in India
Why in the news ?
- According to RBI data released, Mauritius remained the top source of foreign direct investment into India in 2017-18 followed by Singapore.
More in the news
- The total FDI stood at $37.36 billion in the financial year, a marginal rise over the $36.31 billion recorded in the previous fiscal.
- While FDI from Mauritius totalled $13.41 billion against $13.38 billion in the previous year, inflows from Singapore rose to $9.27 billion from $6.52 billion.
- FDI from Netherlands declined marginally to $2.67 billion against $3.23 billion in the year-ago period.
- The provisional data for the financial year ended March revealed that foreign direct investment (FDI) into the manufacturing sector witnessed a substantial decline to $7.06 billion against $11.97 billion in the year-ago period.
- However, FDI into communication services rose to $8.8 billion in 2017-18 compared to $5.8 billion.
- The inflows into retail and wholesale trade also shot up to USD 4.47 billion as against USD 2.77 billion.
- Sectors like construction and mining witnessed a decline in FDI inflows during 2017-18, whereas electricity and other energy generation recorded a slight increase in inflows.
Concept
- Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an investment made by a company or individual in one country in business interests in another country, in the form of either establishing business operations or acquiring business assets in the other country, such as ownership or controlling interest in a foreign company.
- The key feature of foreign direct investment is that it is an investment made that establishes either effective control of, or at least substantial influence over, the decision making of a foreign business.
- The ability to attract large scale FDI into India has been a key driver for policy making by the Government.
- India has already marked its presence as one of the fastest growing economies of the world. It has been ranked among the top 10 attractive destinations for inbound investments.
- Since 1991, the regulatory environment in terms of foreign investment has been consistently eased to make it investor-friendly.
Source
The Hindu, Economic Times.