Mauritius top source for FDI in India

The Dollar Business Bureau

Mauritius tops the list of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India, accounting for 20.8% of FDI till March 2016. The US was on the second spot, followed by the UK, Singapore and Japan, said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at the time of releasing the census on Foreign Liabilities and Assets (FLA) of Indian Direct Investment Companies for 2015-16.

The source for Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) of Indian firms was mainly Singapore, Mauritius, the US and the Netherlands.

“Equity participation had a much larger share (93.4%) than debt in total inward FDI, which stood at Rs.20,140 billion at market value in March 2016 (Rs.19,813.4 billion a year ago). Total ODI was placed at Rs.5,79,020 crore at market value (Rs 5,63,700 crore a year ago). Under ODI too, equity participation had a large share (80.5 per cent),” the data said.

The outward to inward direct investment ratio at market value improved slightly from 28.5% to 28.7% over the current period.

Manufacturing as well as services sector attract major foreign equity participation. Overall FDI stock at market value in both the manufacturing and services sectors was Rs.10,00,630 crore in March this year and Rs.8,59,080 crore, respectively.

Manufacturing sector attracts about half of the overall FDI at market prices whereas the information and communication services attracted 20.1%, financial and insurance activities attracted 11.2%.

According to the data, overall sales, consisting of exports of foreign subsidiaries surged by 22.5% to Rs.3,30,110 crore in the FY 2015-16. The overall value of their purchases, comprising imports, surged by 44.7% to Rs.3,15,070 crore in the last fiscal. The ratio of purchase-to-sale was 95.4%.

Most of the companies did not report purchase/sales because of being at developing stage or some other reasons.