Opposing FDI in the retail sector, activist Anna Hazare on Wednesday said the move would lead to enslavement of the countrymen and will not benefit the farmers as claimed by the government.
The Finance Ministry further said decision on seven FDI proposals has been deferred.
Breaking his silence on FDI in multi-brand retail, Dravida Munnetra Kazagham chief M Karunanidhi on Monday said his party will not support the Centre's decision to allow foreign investment in the sector.
The highest FDI came in services ($2.18 billion), followed by automobiles ($1.28 billion), pharmaceuticals ($1.27 billion) and construction development ($1.05 billion) in the 11 months of 2013-14.
India, the world's fifth largest economy in the world, is likely to overtake Japan to become the world's third-largest economy with a GDP of $7.3 trillion by 2030, S&P Global Market Intelligence said in its latest issue of PMI. After two years of rapid economic growth in 2021 and 2022, the Indian economy has continued to show sustained strong growth during the 2023 calendar year. India's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow 6.2-6.3 per cent in the fiscal year ending in March 2024, being the fastest-growing major economy this fiscal year.
Between 2004-05 and 2007-08, FDI in services leapfrogged to $6.61 billion from $444 million, an official statement said. The real estate sector which was thrown open in 2004-05 saw the FDI picking up slowly in the initial two years, but grew substantially in 2007-08 to $2.17 billion.
Sources said in order to address the security concerns, FDI proposals from Pakistan would be routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
A leading economic think-tank on Thursday advocated allowing foreign direct investment of upto 49 per cent in the retail sector.
Foreign direct investment inflows to India increased by 67.6 per cent year-on-year to $2.38 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal ended September 30.
The Congress on Saturday saw "no crisis" over the opposition of it allies like Trinamool Congress to the FDI in retail and said that the party was fully behind Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.
The department of telecom will issue guidelines on raising the foreign direct investment limit to 74 per cent from 49 per cent next week.
Even as the Centre is working overtime to roll out FDI in retail while the real decision might rest with the states, Arvind Singhal, chairman, Technopak Advisors, often referred to as the poster boy of the Indian retail sector, said the so-called big-ticket measure was "not the most important thing"for the sector.
The move comes in the backdrop of a slowdown in the foreign direct investments and its impact on the current account deficit.
The government must review its policy to allow foreign direct investment up to 24 per cent in the small and medium scale enterprises, and ensuring better credit facility and technology financing to make them globally competitive.
Improved monsoon, solid fiscal performance, and capex push by the public and private sectors augurs well for India's macroeconomic stability and growth, the finance ministry's monthly economic review for June 2023 said. But the report said that while India's domestic fundamentals remain strong, negative cross-border spillovers and adverse global developments could act as a deterrent in achieving the high growth path this financial year. "An improved matching of aggregate supply and aggregate demand in the Indian economy underpins the progress made in the control of domestic inflation and the consequent strengthening of macroeconomic stability," the review said.
Inter-ministerial body Telecom Commission on Tuesday approved hiking foreign direct investment limit in the sector from 74 per cent to 100 per cent.
India is now a biz friendly nations, say Arun Jaitley.
Prominent e-commerce marketplace players include Amazon.in, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm, Shopclues and Jabong
Emerging consensus is that all state capitals be covered.
The latest available data from the Reserve Bank of India show a 77 per cent jump in the FDI in the first half of the current financial year (April-September), compared to what was $19.5 billion the same period a year ago.
The move came as the country badly needs capital inflows as the rupee comes under pressure
Taking its protest against FDI to the streets, opposition parties on Wednesday said their fight will go on till they ensure that it is scrapped altogether.
Tesco, which has a franchise agreement with Trent Hypermarkets for the latter's back-end operations, is believed to be interested in investing in those hypermarkets
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a source of funding has shrunk to a trickle for the once lucrative telecom sector with foreign investment inflows plunging to $43 million in the April-September period of the current fiscal.
.jpg)
The new Insurance Bill may be implemented in 2015.
Consensus eluded an all-party meeting called on FDI issue on Monday even as Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party provided comfort to the government by not insisting on voting and Trinamool Congress springing a surprise by speaking in a similar tone.
Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India and Janata Dal-United on Tuesday come together to launch a national campaign against FDI in retail and sought support from the people to make the movement against the government's "anti-people" policy a success.
The Union government is likely to come out with a liberalised foreign direct investment policy in a bid to make foreign investment an engine of growth and create large-scale employment.
Punjab and Gujarat are in favour of FDI in multi-brand retail in food items while many others have vehemently opposed the idea, a government official said.
In the cacophony of debates on the wisdom of liberalising retail foreign direct investment, or FDI, one viewpoint was noticeably absent: whether and how this might affect India's strategic interests.
Bharti Group said on Thursday that it will not dilute its share in its telecom arm Bharti Televentures even if the government raises the foreign direct investment limit in the sector.
Some new sectors in which the commerce ministry has proposed to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) are credit information companies and commodity exchanges. The ministry is in favour of allowing up to 49 per cent FDI proposed in both these sectors. In proposing to open up the commodity sector, the ministry has said that FII investment be limited to 24 per cent, with a condition that a foreign investor cannot hold more than 10 per cent equity in the investing companies
Terming the prime minister's address to the nation on September 21 as "most laughable", Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said Manmohan Singh has "shamelessly" defended Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail and rise in diesel prices.
A government panel on Tuesday proposed raising foreign investment limits in sectors like defence, multi-brand retail and telecommunications, to spur investment in the country and tide over the Current Account Deficit woes.
A recent public interest suit in the Supreme Court over foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail may have thrown the industry into a tizzy, but lawyers, constitutional experts and government officials indicate the multi-brand retail FDI policy is unlikely to get derailed over Fema.
In a major policy reversal, the AAP government wrote to the Centre to withdraw the approval given by the previous Sheila Dikshit government for FDI in multi-brand retailing in Delhi, saying the entry of global chains such as Walmart and Tesco in India would result in large-scale job losses.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India declined by about 15 per cent to $12.6 billion (Rs 74,971 crore) during April-October this year, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
The deadlock in Parliament over Foreign Direct Investment in retail and several other issues continued for the ninth day on Friday with the opposition and some members of United Progressive Alliance partner Trinamool Congress creating uproar in both Houses to press for their demands. Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned minutes after they met for the day.
