India eyes $100 billion FDI in coming years, says Ashwini Vaishnaw

India is looking to attract annual foreign direct investment (FDI) to the tune of USD 100 billion “in the next few years”, Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told Reuters on the sidelines of the ongoing World Economic Forum.
“We see 6-8 per cent consistent growth rate over the next full decade, and this is based on a very clearly thought-out strategy. This strategy has four major engines,” the minister told Reuters in an interview.
The four engines he listed are investment in infrastructure, (both physical and digital), lifting up those at the bottom pyramid of the population, boosting manufacturing, and simplifying ease of doing business.
Earlier, speaking at the World Economic forum Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that trust was India’s biggest capital
“If you look at how India has conducted its foreign policy, its economic policy, the way it has conducted itself – the entire world has developed a very big amount of trust on India. That trust is what is our biggest capital. That trust gels the entire world into a very harmonious way. For eg, we have signed an MoU with the US, Europe, Japan on semiconductors, we are working with South Korean govt & South Korean companies. It’s like every possible company wants to collaborate with India in one way or the other. So, we don’t think that it’s a battle, we think that there is enough for everybody. It’s a question of how much importance we give and how much talent we put into it and how much focussed we are on it…” the Minister said.
India attracted FDI inflows of USD 33 billion in the first six months of the current financial year that started in April 2023. It recorded FDI of USD 71 billion in the 2022-23 financial year, according to the news report.
The investors now see India as the “most important investment destination”, the minister said in the interview.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during its December monetary policy review meeting raised its growth forecast for the current financial year by 50 basis points to 7 per cent from an earlier estimate of 6.5 per cent.
The National Statistics Office in its first advance estimates projected the country’s economy to grow 7.3 per cent in the current financial year 2023-24, remaining the fastest-growing major economy.