FIPB to consider 50 FDI proposals this week

About 50 FDI proposals including those of L&T and Mahindra Group will come up for consideration at the FIPB meeting to be held here on Friday amid renewed efforts by the government to attract private investments.

"The 182nd Meeting of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) is scheduled to be held on October 19, 2012," the Finance Ministry communication said.

The meeting will be headed by Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram.
In the last meeting, the FIPB had approved 14 proposals of Foreign Direct Investment amounting to Rs 113.35 crore.

As per the agenda note, of the total 49 proposals, 16 are fresh and 19 are those on which decisions were deferred in the previous meetings of the Board.

Six applicants, including Arshiya International and DPD Continental, have filed representations against rejection of their proposals by FIPB in earlier meetings.

While India allows FDI in most of the segments through automatic route, the FIPB clears those proposals which are related to sensitive sectors like defence and telecom.

As per the agenda, six proposals - including those of Mahindra and Mahindra and Larsen and Toubro - relates to defence production and three to the telecommunications sector.
Recently, the government liberalised its FDI policy in the multi-brand retail and aviation sectors.

Also, the government would be seeking Parliament's approval to hike foreign investment ceiling in the insurance sector to 49 per cent, up from 26 per cent.