FDI flows improving; more investments in non-IT sectors: Nirmala

Bengaluru: Stating that the FDI inflows in the country are improving day by day, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said more and more investments are coming from sectors other than IT and ITeS.

"Highest investments are coming from services other than IT and IT-enabled services which may include a lot of things - it could be courier services; it could be getting into services that are partly related to logistics and retailing and so on," she said in her address at the IIM Bangalore.

Construction and infrastructure is the second highest sector which are receiving FDIs, the Minister said.

"We also have retailing, IT and IT-enabled services. Chemical industry also is receiving - other than fertilisers, they are also receiving a lot," she said.

Sitharaman said that India received FDI worth nearly USD 29.6 billion, the highest amount received by any country in last fiscal.

"Among the countries, which do monitoring on FDIs flowing into theirs, we seem to have received the highest amount in the last fiscal," she added.

"Something in the range of USD 29.6 billion (India has received FDIs) in the last fiscal. In terms of percentage, it is 38 percent rise in inflows compared to 16 per cent dip all over the world," Sitharaman added.

The Minister said India has received the highest FDIs compared to other countries only showed that the Indian economy is instilling confidence in the minds of investors.

"It is only improving day by day. Largely individual, trust and other corporate entities are coming in," she said.

The US business houses in next five years will be investing anywhere between USD 40 to 45 billion in India in various sectors of activity.

"The US-India Business Council has assessed that in the next five years US Business Houses will be interested in investing anywhere between 40 to 45 billion US dollars in India in various sectors of activity," she said.

However, Foreign Institutional Investments (FIIs) are progressively coming down, Sitharaman said.

"FIIs are dropping. There is no increase in FIIs. They actually are progressively coming down," she said.