NEW DELHI, March 11 (Xinhua) -- India has decided to ease Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms for the countries sharing a land border with it. The decision was taken late on Tuesday evening at a federal cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The federal government issued an official statement saying that it had approved changes in guidelines on investments from countries sharing a land border with India.
This was seen as a major shift in India's FDI policy after a gap of nearly six years. Citing benefits, the federal government said the new guidelines would provide clarity and ease of doing business in India, and facilitate investments which could contribute towards greater FDI inflows, access to new technologies, domestic value addition, expansion of domestic firms, and integration with the global supply chain.
The statement said the changes to FDI policy for investments from Land Bordering Countries (LBCs) would help manufacturing in electronic components, capital goods and solar cells.
According to it, proposals for LBC investments in specified sectors or activities of manufacturing in capital goods, electronic capital goods, electronic components, polysilicon and ingot-wafer shall be processed and decided within 60 days.
In these cases, the majority ownership and control of the investee company must remain with Indian residents, the statement added. ■
