Rama Krishna Sangem
In spite of high inflation and vulnerability of rupee, India will continue to get more FDI (foreign direct investment), said US India SME Council CEO Elisha Pulivarty. India’s FDI inflows for the year 2021-22 are 52.8 bullion US dollars while the same for the previous year, 2020-21, stood at 542.63 billion US dollars. “This shows Indian economy’s robust health and its depth to observe shocks,” said he.
Pulivarty talked to Excel India, as part of a series of articles for the upcoming US India business meet to be held in Hyderabad soon. He gave details of top five countries that pumped FDI to India. They are: Singapore – 15.90 billion US dollars (27 per cent), followed by the US – 10.50 billion, (18), Mauritius – 9.40 billion (16), Netharlands – 4.63 billion (7.8) and Switzerland – 4.2 billion US dollars ( 7.3 per cent).
Canada, France and Germany too contributed FDI with less than one billion US dollars. These details are provided by the Reserve Bank of India. Certain developments like high inflation and weakening of rupee since the beginning of this year 2022 have caused concern to economists and policy makers of India. As the imports bill has risen sharply since Russia’s war on Ukraine led to exodus of foreign money from India stocks.
Indications of sharp rise of interests rates in the US too have compounded the problem of Indian FDI position. But all that has become a short lived problem, said Pulivarty. Luckily, the unemployment rate in the US is under control – around 3.7 per cent. There are no signs of recession, as feared by the economists, either in the US or India. The graduation betterment of supply chain flows from China too are optimistic, said he.
The recent visit of Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to the US to participate in the IPFE (India Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity) meeting and that of US India business forum have had positive impact on the bilateral trade. “This is a good time for SMEs (small and medium enterprises), more trade and business is expected between both the countries,” said Elisha Pulivarty.
