Rs 11,800 crore FDI in telecom till August '06

The actual foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow into the Indian telecom sector stands at Rs 11,799.61 crore till August 2006, with holding companies topping the list with an investment of Rs 4,842 crore.

The cellular mobile telephone services brought in investments of Rs 3,100.95 crore and manufacturing and consultancy Rs 1619.1 crore, according to a paper by the ministry of telecommunications and IT.

Over Rs 1,405 crore came in through automatic route, while basic telephony services brought in Rs 393.7 crore, cable TV network and internet Rs 172.2 crore, radio paging Rs 91 crore, e-mail services Rs 68.8 crore and satellite telephony service Rs 48.10 crore.

VSat services with Rs 28.1 crore, value-added services Rs 23.06 crore and radio trunking service with Rs 7.1 crore were the other contributors to inflow.

The FDI inflow totalled Rs 11,799.61 crore till August 2006, with the year's contribution at Rs 1,387.05 crore, compared with Rs 94.31 crore in 2005. The country received Rs 454.85 crore in 2004, Rs 301.40 crore in 2003 and Rs 1,081.50 crore in 2002.

FDI proposals worth Rs 45,397 crore was approved for the telecom sector during the nine-year period from August 1991 to October 2000. Industry analysts state that over $4 billion of FDI proposals were approved till 2006, but this could not be confirmed.

Ericsson, Elcoteq, LG, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens, Motorola and Flextronics were some of the companies that had committed to invest in the country in 2006-06. According to the ministry statement, there is a large gap between approved FDI and inflow of FDI, "which is not unique to the telecom sector".

The position is actually better in telecom sector, with the FDI being around 11.32 per cent of the total FDI flowing into the country. Some of the foreign investors had withdrawn from investing in the country.

The ministry attributed this to the structural changes the telecom industry across the globe underwent and this also provided opportunities to the new investors.

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RINGING LOUD

The FDI inflow totalled Rs 11,799.61 crore till August 2006, with the year's contribution at Rs 1,387.05 crore, compared with Rs 94.31 crore in 2005

Industry analysts state that over $4 billion of FDI proposals were approved till 2006

Over Rs 1,405 crore came in through automatic route, while basic telephony services brought in Rs 393.7 crore