Foreign Direct Investments Grew 18% In FY18, RBI Data Show

Foreign direct investment during the previous fiscal grew 18 percent to Rs 28.25 lakh crore, data from the Reserve Bank of India showed on Monday.

FDI increased by Rs 4.33 lakh crore, including revaluation of past investments, during 2017-18 to reach Rs 28.24 lakh crore in March 2018 at market value, according to RBI's “Census on Foreign Liabilities and Assets of Indian Direct Investment Companies, 2017-18”.

The RBI said as many as 23,065 companies responded to the latest round of the census, of which, 20,732 firms had FDI or overseas direct investment in their balance sheet in March 2018. ODI by Indian companies increased 5 percent to Rs 5.28 lakh crore.

“FDI companies witnessed a substantial increase in other investment liabilities, largely due to the increase in trade credit,” the RBI said.

The census showed that Mauritius continued to be the largest source of FDI in India (19.7 percent) followed by the U.S., U.K., Singapore and Japan.

In case of overseas investment by Indian companies, Singapore (17.5 percent) was the major destination, followed by the Netherlands, Mauritius and U.S.

Manufacturing sector had majority share in total FDI. Information and communication services and financial and insurance activities were other major recipients.

The RBI said the data released are the provisional results of 2017-18.

At the aggregate level, foreign equity participation was very high as 84 percent of the companies that reported inward FDI were subsidiaries of foreign companies, that is single foreign investor holding more than 50 percent of total equity, RBI said.