FDI Dynamics Favour India

India is already in the international limelight for having achieved the highest economic growth among the free democratic economies. No wonder, the world is keeping a close watch on it as foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow to India is gaining momentum. It has already reached $1.74 billion in the period of April-June of the current year compared to $1.18 billion in the same period last year. This amounts to a 47% growth of FDI. No one knows better than India's Commerce and Industry Minister, Kamal Nath who reeled out the impressive statistics. His ministry had aired optimism earlier that FDI inflow may touch the elusive double digit figure of $10 billions during the year 2006-07 in May 2006 and the government had provisionally estimated that India received over $8 billion of FDI inflows in 2005-06 which was over 60 per cent higher than the figures of 2004-05.
Coming as it did just when the thick fog over the ban on Pepsi and Coca-Cola has not cleared yet, it shows that no one is too deeply worried about FDI drying up from USA as a fallout of the controversy. Why should it affect India so seriously? The following details will remove such doubts from the mind.
1. Top 10 countries investing in India:(i) Mauritius (ii) USA (iii) Japan (iv) Netherlands (v) UK (vi) Germany (vii) Singapore (viii) France (ix) South Korea (x) Switzerland
2. Other countries joining the big league:(i) West Indies (ii) South Africa (iii) Nevis (iv) Iceland
3. Favourite sectors of investors:(i) Electronic equipment (ii) telecom (iii) Transport (iv) Fuel (v) Food Processing (vi) Drugs and Pharmaceutical (vii) Metallurgy
4. MNCs waiting in the wings for investing:(i) Nissan (ii) Suzuki (iii) General Motors (iv) Honda (v) Mitsubishi (vi) Citi Consumers (viii) Flextronics (ix) Global Communication Service Holding. While the first four are for automobile projects, the rest is for petrochemicals, real estate etc.
In such a scenario, things are really looking bright for India and for now, all roads lead to Rome! Pepsi and Coca-Cola may not be able to turn the tide. What do you say?