India ranked among top 3 investment destinations

India is one of the world's top three preferred investment destinations, according to a study published by the Columbia University in its FDI Profiles on Friday.

The report, `Inward FDI in India and its Policy Context', authored by Premila Nazareth Satyanand and Pramila Raghavendran, says despite the crisis, a number of leading global firms, including Volkswagen, Telenor, LG, Cairn, and a number of IT companies, have announced large-scale investments in various sectors in the country.

Global surveys conducted by UNCTAD, AT Kearney and others consistently rank India as a preferred destination because of the vibrant investment climate, they said in the report.

In contrast to the favorable development of economic drivers of inward FDI, the security-induced tightening of approval procedures and oversight policies might limit the potential inflow of FDI, as might the difficulty in obtaining operational clearances, the report noted.

Average annual foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into India have grown fifteen-fold since 2000.

"India had received some $169 billion of cumulative FDI inflows by the end of 2009 since it first opened itself to foreign direct investors in 1991," it said.