The government has cleared 17 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals with the investment worth around Rs 262.56 crore, including Sanofi-Synthelabo proposal, which was regarding the acquisition of a pharma company through internal accruals and proposes to bring in FDI worth around Rs 180 crore.
The government’s statement said that following the recommendations of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), seven pharmaceutical sector related FDI proposals including Oxford Lifesciences and defence sector proposal of Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company have been cleared. Whereas decisions on approving FDI proposals of Muthoot Finance Ltd and Euronet Services India to set up ‘white label ATMs' have been delayed.
India has allowed FDI in most of the sectors through automatic route, but for certain sensitive sectors, FIPB clearance is required. Further, to attract maximum FDI into the country, the government has been liberalizing the foreign investment policy. For the April-December period of 2012-13, the FDI inflows have declined by about 42 per cent to $16.94 billion. Lower FDI has put pressure on the country’s of payments and impacted domestic currency. Indian domestic currency depreciated by more than 15 percent in 2012 due to lower FDI inflow.
