Despite criticism from different quarters, India has emerged as the top destination for Foreign direct investment (FDI) as compared with China and United states in the first half of 2015. A report published in London’s Financial Times has said that that India has attracted roughly 31 billion US dollar ahead of 28 billion dollar of china and 27 billion of United States. Expressing satisfaction on the report, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government efforts are paying off as India has become the highest destination for greenfield projects.
In an another report, India has moved up 16 positions to rank 55th on a global index of the world’s most competitive economies, where Switzerland remains on the top. Hailing the two global reports, Secretary Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Amitabh Kant said this success has been achieved at the point of time when globally FDI has fallen by about 16 per cent.
The huge surge of FDI investment in the country came after the government has relaxed FDI norms in various sectors including defence, railways, construction, insurance and medical devices. Experts say, lot of red tapism has been cut and the government have made things extremely easy. India has increased about 18 billion FDI inflow in the first half of this year as compared to last year, which stood at 12 billion dollar. Amitabh Kant expresses confidence that India’s ranking would improve in the World Bank’s report on ease of doing business. India is currently ranked 142nd among 189 nations in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2015 study.