Mauritius remains top source of FDI inflows
NEWDELHI: Mauritius remained the top source of foreign direct investment (FDI) into India in 2017-18 followed by Singapore, whereas total FDI stood at $37.36 billion in the financial year, a marginal rise over the $36.31 billion recorded in the previous fiscal, according to RBI data.
While FDI from Mauritius totalled $13.41 billion as against $13.38 billion in the previous year, inflows from Singapore rose to $ 9.27 billion from $6.52 billion. Even as FDI from Netherlands declined marginally to $2.67 billion as against $3.23 billion in the year-ago period. The provisional data for the financial year ended March revealed that the FDI into the manufacturing sector witnessed a substantial decline to $7.06 billion, as against $11.97 billion in the year-ago period. However, FDI into communication services rose to $8.8 billion in 2017-18 as compared to $5.8 billion.
The inflows into retail and wholesale trade also shot up to $4.47 billion as against $2.77 billion, while financial services sector too witnessed a rise in inflows to $4.07 billion from $3.73 billion in the previous year. “The fact that these sectors have accounted for more than 50% of the total FDI of $37.36 billion in 2017-18 reflects the kind of global interest being generated into the new areas of economy, including online marketplace, financial technologies or Fin-tech,” said Assocham.
FDI in computer services was recorded at $3.17 billion as against $1.93 billion in the previous year. Inflows in real estate activities jumped fourfold to $405 million as compared to $105 million; while FDI in education and R&D (research and development) stood at $347 million versus $205 million in FY 2016-17.
“With several key indicators like corporate earnings, uptick in topline and consumer demand showing a marked improvement on the back of well–spread monsoon, the investment sentiment is expected to gain momentum in the next few quarters and would further improve in the FY 2019-20,” the chamber said.