France to invest $10 billion in India by 2020

Deepak Kumar | The Dollar Business 

  With an aim to bolster economic cooperation with its long-term partner, the French government on Monday announced that it will invest over $10 billion over the next five years in the Indian market. “In the last five years, the French companies have invested more than $1 billion per year in India, and we estimate that they will continue to invest at least over $10 billion over the next five years,”  France’s Finance and Public Accounts Minster Michel Sapin said at the Indo-France interactive session in New Delhi. “The Majority of these investments are meant for the industrial sector, and this makes France a major player in the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India programme,” Sapin said. With more than 400 French companies currently operational in India, France continues to be the third highest foreign investor in the Indian market. Earlier on Monday, the French Finance Minister met his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitely and invited him to France to launch the first dialogue session, a session the two countries can hold annually to discuss all the subjects of common interest. Sapin also expressed concerns over the limited presence of Indian companies in the French market, despite France being one of the largest FDI recipients in the world. “Therefore, I count on all the French companies in India to act as ambassadors for our countries and invite their counterparts to France to discover what they are missing,” Sapin said. On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi co-chaired the India-France Business Summit with the French President Francois Hollande, who is on a state visit to India to take part in the Republic Day celebration, and oversaw the inking of as many as 16 key agreements including those related to Rafale combat jets, space tech, food safety, smart governance, maritime cooperation and railways, between the two countries. 

January 25, 2016 | 04:45pm IST