Finance Ministry to take up 35 FDI proposals

The most important ones being that of Bharti Shipyard and Verizon Communications

Finance Ministry will take call on 35 foreign direct investment proposals, including that of Bharti Shipyard and Verizon Communications, later this month.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) headed by Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram will hold its 210th meeting on September 16 and there are 35 proposals on the agenda, the ministry said.

Bharti Shipyard, an Indian company in shipbuilding sector which has existing FDI through FIIs and NRIs proposes to undertake defence activities.

The FIPB had deferred decision on the proposal in its one of the meetings held in July last year.

Verizon Communications India is seeking approval to increase foreign equity participation by its foreign parent from 74% to 100%. The FIPB had deferred decision on the proposal in its meeting held on August 1.

Among other proposals that are in the agenda include that of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, IndusInd Bank, HBM Private Equity India, Hatsoff Helicopter Training, Instant Global Money Transfer and Tara India Fund IV Trust.

India allows FDI in most of the sectors through automatic route, but in certain sensitive sectors like defence, pharma and telecom investors require prior approval of FIPB.

The government is taking several steps to boost FDI in the country. It has de-licensed several defence products for private players, besides hiking the FDI cap to 49% in the sensitive sector.

Railways sector too has been opened to foreign investment and the government has introduced a bill to hike FDI ceiling in insurance sector to 49% from the current 26%.