Govt To Unveil Revised FDI Policy on Friday.

The government will on Friday release the revised consolidated foreign direct investment (FDI) policy paper, a ready reckoner on foreign investment related regulations.

"This will incorporate all changes effected in FDI Policy...i.e. from April 1 to September 30," a Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) official said.

The government in 2010 had decided to come out with consolidated FDI policy paper summarising all the regulations including those of FEMA and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the benefit of foreign investors. It revises the policy in every six months.

The department had released the last edition of consolidated FDI policy on March 31.

On reforms in FDI policies, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, after a meeting of an industry-government task force in the national capital, said overseas investment in education and old-age home sectors is being delinked from real estate. It will be announced in the new policy circular on Friday.

These two sectors would be exempted from conditions like minimum area to be developed under each project, minimum capitalisation of $10 million for wholly-owned subsidiaries and $5 million for joint ventures with Indian partners.

Also, original investment cannot be repatriated before a period of three years for completion of minimum capitalisation.

The sectors have also been exempted from the condition that at least 50 per cent of the project must be developed within a period of five years from the date of obtaining all statutory clearances.

The consolidated document aims at helping foreign investors as it contains all the current regulatory framework and subsumes all FDI policies announced prior to the release of the paper. It also has regulations on FDI, contained in FEMA and RBI circulars.

For April-July, FDI went up by 92 per cent to $14.54 billion from $7.56 billion in the corresponding period last year.

Source : businesstoday.intoday.in