Dispelling any fear of slowdown, Indian economy attracted $4.68 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) in November 2016, up 60 per cent over the corresponding period last year of $2.93 billion. During the period, India received the maximum FDI from Singapore, Mauritius, the UK, the US, the Netherlands and Japan.
During April-November period of the current fiscal, FDI in the country grew to $32.49-billion against $24.81 billion in the same period previous year. Among the main sectors, services received the maximum FDI of $6.69 billion during the eight-month period of 2016-17, followed by telecom ($5.47 billion), computer hardware and software ($1.61 billion), electrical equipment ($2 billion) and information & broadcasting ($1.06 billion).
Foreign investments are considered crucial for India, needing around $1 trillion for overhauling its infrastructure sector. The government has been focusing to improve the ease of doing business and relax regulations for increasing FDI and in a view of growth perspective in FDI, the Finance Minister in his Budget speech announced to abolish Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and come up with a new mechanism that could include approvals by the ministries concerned for expeditious clearance of foreign investment proposals which will improve ease of doing business.