Senior ministers discussing FDI liberalisation: Sharma

As government faces heat on skyrocketing onion and vegetable prices, senior ministers have held discussions on a proposal for opening of multi-brand retail stores to the foreign direct investment and hiking the FDI limit in defence production.

The discussions on the key issues of liberalising the FDI in the two sectors were held yesterday at a meeting attended by  Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister A K Antony and Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma.

"We will be having more meetings. Policy (formation) is dynamic...We are very progressive and forward looking," Sharma told reporters here.

While Sharma said there was no connection between the soaring onion prices and the FDI in multi-brand retail, the demand for opening up the sector has been intensifying, especially in the wake of wide gap between the wholesale and retail prices.

The Commerce and Industry Minister said the government has followed a "progressive approach and the liberalisation (in policy) has been incremental".

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has floated discussion papers on opening FDI in multi-brand retail and increasing it in defence production. Consultations with the stakeholders have been completed.

Giving an annual review of performance of exports and the industrial production, Sharma said the government would give further incentives to the exporting sectors which are labour intensive and have not fully recovered from the last year's slowdown.

"Reviews have been completed. We will now be making final analysis in the first half of January. Where further incentives are required, (they) will be announced," he said.

India's exports in the April-November period of this fiscal have crossed $140 billion, growing by about 27 per cent and the annual target of $200 billion would be met, he said.

Sharma said the country was on course to doubling its exports by 2014 from 2008-09 level of $168 billion.

The government has already taken various steps to help the export sector by giving incentives for market diversification, he said.

However, the FDI inflows have been lower at $12.5 billion for the April-October period this fiscal against $17.6 billion because of sluggish global recovery and "very weak flow of capital".