Foreign investment limits in different sectors could be revisited: FM

18 Jun 2013 Evaluate

In a move to attract more inflows and finance the widening current account deficit (CAD), the government is looking to revisit the foreign investment limits in different sectors where ceilings are not serving their intended purpose. At a meeting of Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Finance, the Finance Minister P Chidambaram said, the government is keen on increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) ceilings to attract more inflows and will revisit those where ceilings are not serving their intended purpose.

Sharing a similar view the Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma had earlier said that he would soon move the Cabinet for raising FDI cap in telecom and defence sectors as the government wanted to revive economic growth and spur investments. Though, India allows 100% FDI in a large number of the sectors, there is a ceiling on foreign investment in sensitive segments like multi-brand retail, insurance, defence and telecom.

The major reason for India's large CAD is that the country has huge dependence on import of certain items like oil, coal and gold, Chidambaram added. Touching a record high of 6.7% of GDP in the third quarter of 2012-13, India’s CAD is likely to be around 5% in the 2012-13 fiscal. Further, during last fiscal, FDI inflows declined by 38% to $22.42 billion and economic growth rate slipped to a decade low of 5% in 2012-13.

However, Finance Minister is of view that India continues to remain a desired destination for FDI and FII, despite recession in major economies. By adding further he said, in spite all probability the government was able to finance the CAD and also added around $3 billion to the forex reserves in 2012-13 and expressed confidence that in 2013-14 also CAD will be financed without dipping into reserves. Furthermore he said the only way to contain CAD is to increase the domestic production of oil and coal and restraining the consumption of gold. In order to increase ‘our production, we must get our policies and priorities right as long term measures.’

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