E-Paper
Govt launches new foreign investment policy document
The government on Wednesday launched a new policy document consolidating the plethora of rules and norms governing foreign investment in the country under one comprehensive document.
The government on Wednesday launched a new policy document consolidating the plethora of rules and norms governing foreign investment in the country under one comprehensive document.
The move is aimed at making available all information on FDI policy in one place.
It will lead to simplification of the policy; greater clarity of understanding of foreign investment rules among foreign investors and sector regulators, as also predictability of policy direction.
About the consolidated policy, commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma said that the current exercise had been initiated with the aim of integrating all prior regulations on FDI, contained in FEMA, RBI circulars and various press notes into one consolidated document.
“Having a single policy platform that would subsume the 178 press notes would also ease the regulatory burden for government; it will be updated every six months,” Sharma said.
“This consolidated press note will be superseded by a press note to be issued on September 30, 2010 to ensure that the framework document on FDI policy is kept updated,” he said.
FDI equity inflows for the month of February, 2010 have been $ 1.72 billion, which represents an increase of 15 per cent compared to the same month last year.
It is likely that the total inflows in the current financial year (2009-10) will be comparable to the total inflows received during the last financial year (2008-09).
This is despite the fact the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) had predicted a fall in global FDI investment flows by 30 per cent — from $ 1.7 trillion in 2008 to $ 1.2 trillion in 2009.
“The consolidation of FDI regulatory policy would aid simplification and boost global investors’ confidence,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
