The Centre has not published Foreign Direct Investment data since June 2018, despite receiving regular inputs from the Reserve bank of India, the Business Standard reported on Wednesday. The data, which is published every quarter, was last published in August 2018, for the April-June quarter.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Production compiles total inbound direct investment made by non-resident investors, collating data from its own databases and inputs from the RBI. Government agencies such as Invest India and the India Brad Equity Foundation, which help investors look for investment opportunities, have also not received the latest data, Business Standard reported.
The data submitted by the RBI showed that the gross investment received in April-November period of 2018-’19 financial year was $40.98 billion, which is 2% less than the investments received in the same period in the previous financial year. The drop has been noted for the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over the government in 2014.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development in its World Investment Report 2018 showed that FDI to India declined from $44 billion in 2016 to $40 billion in 2017. India’s position on the AT Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index fell for the first time in 2018. The drop may be a result of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax, the report had suggested.
Moreover, figures submitted by the government in Parliament in July 2018 showed that FDI from nations regarded as tax havens, such as Cayman Islands and Hong Kong, jumped in 2017-’18 financial year. Suspicions have been raised about the origin of those funds.
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