FDI in India: Do New Delhi and state governments need to re-think strategies?

Recently, India emerged as the top FDI destination in the world, attracting 63 Billion USD in 2015 according to the fDi intelligence Report (The Business Standard, April 22, 2016). As is evident from Table 1, while India has been successful in raising the level of FDI, over the past decade, (as a result of domestic and global factors, there was a dip in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014), what is especially significant, is that India has overtaken China for the first time in terms of attraction of FDI. This success is being attributed to a number of factors, ranging from the current Modi government’s aggressive marketing of programs such as Make in India, liberalisation of FDI norms for 15 sectors in November 2015, enhancement in the ease of doing business, as well as the slowdown of China. It would be pertinent to point out, that one major contributor to India’s success in attracting FDI in recent years is the increasingly pro-active role played by states in attracting Foreign Direct Investment. […