Published by the Press, Information & Culture Wing, Embassy of India

In this Issue
(January 16-31 1999)

South Asia Region

India's Foreign Relations

Economy & Trade

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Opinion

Feature: Christianity in India

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Non-Resident Indian Investment

Non-Resident Indians can avail themselves of the general policy and facilities for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as available to foreign companies. In addition, the Government have extended some concessions specially for NRIs and Overseas Corporate Bodies (OCBs), predominantly owned by the NRIs. These include i ) while no foreign investment is permitted in the real estate sector, NRIs/OCBs are permitted in the real estate and housing sectors up to 100 per cent; (ii) NRI/OCB investment in domestic airlines sector is permitted up to 100 per cent while foreign investment is limited up to only 40 per cent; (iii) NRI/OCBs are permitted to invest up to 40 per cent in the banking sector whereas foreign equity other than investment by multilateral financial institutions is permitted only up to 20 per cent: (iv) while foreign equity and OCB equity is limited up to 24 per cent in the case of SSI units, NRIs can invest beyond 24 per cent in such units in the first instance provided they do not have a stake in any other industrial undertaking; and (v) NRI/OCB can invest up to 100 per cent in a large number of sectors which include mining, plantation, manufacture of food products, transport equipment, electric generation and transmission etc.

Against the above, the receipt of inflows has been to the tune of Rs.73.99 billion including NRI schemes approved by RBI. Thus the success rate of NRI approvals has been as high as 90 per cent.