Govt further relaxing FDI regime, says official

Over 90 per cent of foreign direct investment in the country is coming through automatic route and the commerce ministry is further relaxing the FDI regime, a top government official said today.
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said huge potential exists in India to attract FDI.
The government is implementing a series of transformative actions and policies which are required to realise this potential, he said at the India Economic Summit here.
"For example our FDI policies, they were restrictive. Now we have made India one of the most open economies. Even in very sensitive sectors, we have allowed 100 per cent FDI and under automatic route in most cases. 92 per cent of FDI comes under automatic route now and we are further relaxing the FDI regime," he said.

In June, FDI policy in as many as nine sectors were relaxed and that include defence, aviation and food processing.
In November last year also, government had opened up 15 sectors including real estate, defence, civil aviation and news broadcasting in a bid to push up reforms.

On e-commerce, the DIPP Secretary said that a committee
was set up to see ways to promote ecommerce in India.
In a meeting of the committee, companies like Uber gave presentations and "we are trying to see where the bottlenecks are and we want to fix those problems," he said at the session on 'India Means Business'.

When asked about an alleged rape incident involving a Uber driver: "I think it is more important that we have safety checks in place, the background check on drivers, whether employed by a foreign company or Indian company. I think, those kind of precautions are very important".
Further he said that the government is working along with states on improving ease of doing business in India.
Improvement in enforcement of contracts is one of the issue which is on the government's radar, he added.
"States are realising that unless they do this, investors are not going to come...But we have to do more," Abhishek said.

Speaking at the session, Uber's Senior Vice-President, Policy and Communications Rachel Whetstone said the government is very supportive here for its business.
However, she said that India should simplify the permit process for drivers.
Talking about the business climate in India, Yusuf Ali, CMD, Lulu Group International, UAE said it has become easy for NRIs to invest in India.
Investors want infrastructure, human resource and easy laws and regulations, "so now things are changing and moving" in India, he said.
The company has constructed the first hypermarket in Kerala and "now I am constructing another shopping mall and hypermarket in Trivandrum and one more in Lucknow," he said.