Govt announces steps to expedite FDI

Our Corporate Bureau

New Delhi, Oct 8: The government is undertaking a series of measures to remove impediments to foreign direct investment (FDI) including reducing the time-frame for approvals and facilitating implementation through Foreign Investment Implementation Authority (FIIA).

The system for approvals of foreign investments has been streamlined and in over 95 per cent cases the approvals are issued within 4-6 weeks of the receipt of applications, an official statement said.

“Foreign investors have been urged to utilise the services of FIIA in case of any difficulty in implementation of FDI projects,” it said adding that the sectoral and state-level implementation issues still persist, which was hampering implementation of projects. Industry secretary S Govindarajan has said that investors may contact nodal officers in case of difficulties in implementation of projects for immediate follow-up. He was speaking at a meeting of the northern region of the FIIA recently.

The meeting was attended by representatives from Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Japan Bank for International Co-operations and Japan External Trade Organisation.

The meeting, which was the third since August this year, was called to smoothen out difficulties of investors.