India releases consolidated FDI policy draft

The government today released the first draft of the country's consolidated foreign direct investment (FDI) policy. The draft has been placed on the web site of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.

Releasing the draft, which is a consolidation of all the aspects of FDI policy and FDI framework, in New Deli today, union minister of commerce and industry Anand Sharma said such consolidation would ensure the availability of all information on FDI policy at one place.

A consolidated draft of the FDI policy would lead to simplification of the policy, greater clarity of understanding of foreign investment rules among foreign investors and sectoral regulators as also predictability, he said.

A single platform to consolidate FDI policy would also ease the regulatory burden for government, he said.

The draft document, available on the DIPP website (http://dipp./nic.in), is open for comments until 31 January 2010 and all comments received until that date would be considered before the final document is prepared, the minister said.

The final document would be released on 31 March / 1 April 2010.