FDI in 2005-06 pegged at $8 bn

The government today said the foreign direct investment flows into India will go up by more than 100 per cent in 2005-06 to cross $ 8 billion.

"The FDI inflows would surpass the eight billion mark in 2005-06 as against 3.75 in 2004-05," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said at a press conference yesterday.

He said in the first two months of this fiscal FDI has gone up by a whopping 117 per cent year-on-year to $ 912 million from $ 421 million in April-May 2004.In 2004-05, FDI had grown by 42 per cent to $ 3.75 billion.Since August 1991 the cumulative FDI approvals stand at $ 67.77 billion while the inflows stand at $ 34.26 billion.Most of the FDI in to India has been routed through Mauritius followed by US, Netherlands, Japan and UK.

While $ 9.7 billion in FDI came from Mauritius,$ 4.7 billion came from the US, $ 1.9 billion from the Netherlands, $ 1.9 billion from Japan and $ 1,7 billion from the UK.

Mauritius accounted for 36 per cent of the FDI since 1991 US for 17 per cent, Netherlands and Japan for 7.0 per cent each and the UK six per cent.

As much as 15 per cent of FDI has flowed into electrical and electronics ($ 4.1 billion) followed by transportation (11 per cent or $ 3.0 billion), telecom (10 per cent or $ 2.7 billion), services (9.3 per cent or $ 2.6 billion) and fuels and power (9.0 per cent or $ 2.5 billion).