The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday said the Net foreign direct investment (FDI) in India declined to USD 13.54 billion in April-November 2023 from USD 19.76 billion during the same period in 2022.

This decline was primarily due to a fall in global inflows and an increase in the repatriation of equity capital, it added.

According to data released by the RBI in its January 2024 bulletin, FDI in India amounted to USD 21.39 billion, while FDI by India, which represents money invested abroad from the country, reached USD 7.85 billion in April-November 2023.

In comparison, for the year 2022, FDI in India stood at USD 29.11 billion, with FDI by India reaching USD 9.35 billion during the same April-November period.

It further revealed that repatriation and disinvestment by those who had made direct investments in India rose to USD 25.58 billion in the first eight months of FY24, up from USD 19.87 billion in April-November 2022.

Manufacturing, electricity, other energy sectors, transport, financial services, retail, and wholesale trade contributed to approximately two-thirds of the gross inward FDI equity flows.

The majority of the equity inflows at 69.9 per cent came from Mauritius, Singapore, Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands during the same period, the data said.

India’s burgeoning data centre capacity serves as a comparative advantage. This capacity is expected to exceed one gigawatt by 2024, positioning the country as a global data centre hub. This development has positive implications for foreign direct investment, which has begun to rebound in the second half of 2023-24 and is increasingly flowing into business services, it added.

Recently, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said India is eyeing USD 100 billion in annual FDI in the next few years.

“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,” he had said. The four engines, he stated, were investment in infrastructure, lifting up those at the bottom of the population, boosting manufacturing, and simplifying ease of doing business.