NEW DELHI: Mauritius accounted for the largest quantum of foreign direct investment in India in 2017-18, followed by Singapore, data from the Reserve Bank of India shows. Total FDI during the financial year stood at $37.36 billion, a marginal rise over the $36.31 billion recorded in the previous fiscal.
While FDI from Mauritius totalled $13.41 billion as against $13.38 billion in the previous year, inflows from Singapore rose to $9.27 billion from $6.52 billion. Even as FDI from Netherlands declined marginally to $2.67 billion as against $3.23 billion in the year-ago period.
The provisional data for the financial year ended March revealed that foreign direct investment (FDI) into the manufacturing sector witnessed a substantial decline to $7.06 billion, as against $11.97 billion in the year-ago period.
However, FDI into communication services rose to $8.8 billion in 2017-18 as compared to $5.8 billion. The inflows into retail and wholesale trade rose to $4.47 billion as against $2.77 billion. The financial services sector saw inflows increase to $4.07 billion from $3.73 billion in the previous year.
“The fact that these sectors have accounted for more than 50 per cent of the total FDI of $37.36 billion in 2017-18 reflects the kind of global interest being generated into the new areas of economy, including online marketplace, financial technologies or Fin-tech,” said Assocham.
Meanwhile, foreign investors infused more than Rs 5,100 crore into the country’s capital market in August—the second consecutive month of inflowon improvement—on the macro front, better corporate earnings and correction in the mid and small-cap space.
The latest inflow comes following a net infusion of over Rs 2,300 crore in the capital market—both equity and debt—in July. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) pumped in a net sum of Rs 1,775 crore into equities in August and a net amount of Rs 3,414 crore into the debt market.