Answer: Non-debt finance is important for India’s economic development because unlike debt finance, there is no direct repayment obligation for the residents as well as the government. In this context, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can play a significant role as an important source of non-debt finance, which can be discerned by the following:

• FDI in India has seen a consistent rise in the last decade, with FY 2021-22 receiving FDI inflows of around USD 84.8 billion, despite the impact of the pandemic and geopolitical developments.
• 71% of multi-national companies (MNCs) working in India consider the country as an important destination for their global expansion owing to confidence in the Indian economy’s performance and the country’s overall potential, as per a survey.

Despite consistent increase, India has further room to attract FDI and finance India’s development path:

• India expects to attract US$120 billion to US$160 billion of FDI annually by 2025 if it manages to increase the FDI to GDP ratio between the 3% to 4% range by 2025.
• Four Indian states- Maharashtra (28%), Karnataka (19%), Delhi (16%) and Gujarat (10%) attracted around 3/4th of the FDI inflows in the country (from October 2019 to June 2020), highlighting areas of opportunity going forward for the rest of the states.
• Only 11% of total FDI in the last 19 years was in low-skill manufacturing, highlighting the potential for India to attract large FDI in low-skill manufacturing.

FDI brings industrial growth, development projects, technical and managerial expertise along with finance. In this context, the government has taken the following measures over the years to provide an enabling and investor friendly FDI policy:

• As per the OECD FDI Restrictiveness Index, India’s overall FDI restriction levels have come down from 0.42 to 0.21 in the last 16 years. The country has made considerable progress in opening up different sectors of the economy including mining, manufacturing, construction, electricity and services.
• The business environment has improved in the last few years owing to the impact of GST, the government’s digital push in various spheres, lowering of corporate tax rates, streamlining the labour codes, transparency in taxation, etc.
• Other reforms such as abolition of the dividend distribution tax (DDT) on companies, production-linked incentives for 13 sectors, increase in FDI limit for defence production under automatic route from 49% to 74%, implementing a GIS system to provide information on industrial land including plot-level information etc. have also played a role in attracting FDI.
• India’s economic growth rate of 8.7% in 2021, a rising middle class driving consumption along with market potential, skilled workforce, and political stability makes the country a favored FDI destination.

Against the backdrop of growth challenges being faced by major economies of the world and new geo-political issues, the continuing reform momentum by the government will attract increasing volume of investment from MNCs and facilitate their larger integration in the domestic supply chain. Further measures such as enhanced effectiveness of the national single window for approval/clearances, greater tax certainty, incentivizing R&D and innovation, and stronger contract enforcement mechanisms are needed.