Budget 2024: India negotiating bilateral investment treaties with countries, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that India is in the process of negotiating bilateral investment treaties with various countries to encourage foreign inflows. She highlighted that foreign direct investment (FDI) has doubled from USD 596 billion during 2014-23 compared to the inflow received during 2005-14. The FM while presenting the interim Budget 2024-25, said that to encourage sustained foreign investment, the government is negotiating bilateral investment treaties with our foreign partners, in the spirit of ‘first develop India’. India is negotiating this treaty with countries such as the UK, she added. These investment treaties help in promoting and protecting investments in each other’s countries. These pacts are important as India has earlier lost two international arbitration cases against British telecom giant Vodafone and Cairn Energy plc of the UK over the retrospective levy of taxes. Foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflows in India declined 24 per cent to USD 20.48 billion in April-September 2023, according to government data. The total FDI – which includes equity inflows, reinvested earnings and other capital – contracted 15.5 per cent to USD 32.9 billion during the period under review against USD 38.94 billion in April-June 2022. The top investor countries include Singapore, Mauritius, the US, the UK, and the UAE. Computer software and hardware, trading, services, telecommunication, automobile, pharma and chemicals are some of the key sectors that attract FDI into India. An official had earlier said that hardening interest rates globally and worsening geopolitical situation impacted FDI inflows into India in 2022-23. With inputs from PTI.