Plan Panel rejects RBI proposal to limit FII investment in the secondary market

22 Apr 2013 Evaluate

In a big disappointment to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), a government panel has turned down the RBI proposal to limit FII investments in the secondary market, citing that foreign investments play important role in propping up the economy. During the April-January period of the current fiscal, FDI into India declined by 39% to $19.10 billion due to global economic uncertainties.

The recently formed panel chaired by Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram and attended by the DIPP Secretary, Chief Economic Advisor Rahguram Rajan and RBI officials decided not to place any restriction of this kind as of now in view of the state of capital market.

Earlier, the RBI proposed that any investment over and above 24 percent made by a foreign institutional investor (FII) in an Indian investee company should comply with all the extant of foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines as regards pricing and entry point conditions. However, Finance Minister P Chidamabaram in his Budget speech, had proposed to follow the international practice with regard to defining FDI and FII, which says that foreign investment of 10 percent or less in a company is treated as FII and if more than 10 percent, the investment is treated as FDI.

Foreign investment is considered crucial for economic development of a country and to attract maximum foreign investment into the country, the government has been liberalizing the foreign investment policy and is keen to promote foreign investments to bridge the widening current account deficit which has widened to record high of 6.7 percent of GDP for the third quarter ended December 2012. India is getting $50 billion foreign investment every year and during the year 2012 India has received $22.8 billion through FDI alone. India receives maximum FDI from Mauritius, followed by Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands and the UK.

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