Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a high-profile meeting to review the country’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy today, where further easing of restrictions may also be discussed. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek will attend the meeting.
Official sources said, Prime Minister is expected to take stock of the measures taken so far to ease foreign investment in the country and look at the roadmap for further reforms in several sectors to boost fund inflow and job creation.
Mr Jaitley in his budget speech this year had announced that the government will consider further liberalising the FDI regime.
The DIPP, which is now the nodal ministry for all FDI proposals under approval route after the abolition of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), will also update the Prime Minister on the status of all pending applications and the new standard operating procedures being put in place to ensure timely decision-making. Under the new regime, each proposal is now being cleared by the departments concerned.
DIPP and economic affairs department will conduct a joint quarterly review meeting to see the status of each proposal.
India recorded the highest ever foreign direct investment in 2016-17 at 43 billion dollars — up by 9 per cent over last year.