Mauritius remains top source of FDI into India in 2017-18: RBI.

Mauritius remained the top source of foreign direct investment into India in 2017-18 followed by Singapore, whereas total FDI stood at USD 37.36 billion in the financial year, a marginal rise over the USD 36.31 billion recorded in the previous fiscal, according to RBI data.

While FDI from Mauritius totalled USD 13.41 billion as against USD 13.38 billion in the previous year, inflows from Singapore rose to USD 9.27 billion from USD 6.52 billion. Even as FDI from Netherlands declined marginally to USD 2.67 billion as against USD 3.23 billion in the year-ago period.

The provisional data for the financial year ended March revealed that foreign direct investment (FDI) into the manufacturing sector witnessed a substantial decline to USD 7.06 billion, as against USD 11.97 billion in the year-ago period.

However, FDI into communication services rose to USD 8.8 billion in 2017-18 as compared to USD 5.8 billion. The inflows into retail and wholesale trade also shot up to USD 4.47 billion as against USD 2.77 billion, while financial services sector too witnessed a rise in inflows to USD 4.07 billion from USD 3.73 billion in the previous year.

"The fact that these sectors have accounted for more than 50 per cent of the total FDI of USD 37.36 billion in 2017-18 reflects the kind of global interest being generated into the new areas of economy, including online marketplace, financial technologies or Fin-tech," said Assocham.

FDI in computer services was recorded at USD 3.17 billion as against USD 1.93 billion in the previous year. Inflows in real estate activities jumped four-fold to USD 405 million as compared to USD 105 million; while FDI in Education and R&D stood at USD 347 million versus USD 205 million in FY 2016-17.

"With several key indicators like corporate earnings, uptick in topline and consumer demand showing a marked improvement on the back of good and well-spread monsoon, the investment sentiment is expected to gain momentum in the next few quarters and would further improve in the FY 2019-20," the chamber said.

Sectors like construction and mining witnessed a decline in FDI inflows during 2017-18, whereas electricity and other energy generation, distribution and transmission and restaurants and hotels recorded a slight increase in inflows, as per data from the Reserve Bank of India's annual report. (Source: The Economic Times)