India is now the most attractive country in the world for foreign direct investment after China, according to an annual survey of global investor confidence by management consultants A.?T.?Kearney.
While China has held the top spot since 2002, an increase in interest in India is a more recent development that coincides with a renewed push by reformers in New Delhi to offer a warmer welcome to FDI as a source of capital, technology and knowhow.
“India is on the cusp of an FDI take-off,” the report said, while warning that the country needed to overcome narrow business interests and infrastructural, logistical and regulatory barriers to take advantage of surging investor confidence.
印度等离岸中心的吸引力持续上升。2005年外国直接投资信心指数(2005 FDI Confidence Index)显示,有80%的企业领导人计划在未来3年内在海外设置公司职能部门,比例远远高于2004年的66%和和2003年的50%. The attraction of offshore centres such as India continues to grow, with 80 per cent of business leaders planning to locate corporate functions overseas over the next three years, compared with 66 percent in 2004 and 50 per cent in 2003, according to the 2005 FDI Confidence Index.
The survey found that a search for revenue growth is pushing companies overseas again at a faster rate than at any time since September 11 2001, with 54 per cent of executives saying they planned to increase levels of foreign investment.
India‘s rise to second place from third last year came at the expense of the US, which fell to the number three slot. Although the UK held its ground in fourth place, other western European countries tumbled.
India attracted just $5.3bn in FDI in 2004, equivalent to 0.8 per cent of global FDI inflows. These rose 2 per cent to $648bn in 2004, the first increase since 2000, with the US, the world‘s largest FDI recipient, attracting $96bn and China $60.6bn.
In spite of India‘s successful positioning as an outsourcing hub for business processing and information technology, these activities have often translated into Indian service sector exports via third party transactions rather than FDI.
“India‘s technology and IT-oriented economy has received fewer capital- intensive FDI flows relative to China, whose entire manufacturing base has been, in large part, established by foreign multi-national companies,” A.?T.?Kearney said.