The Ministry of Commerce & Industry has been holding a series of internal discussions and reviews to give a final shape to the FDI strategy to facilitate the implementation of projects approved by Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

Even though the realisation rate has been consistently and substantially higher than in any year since 1992, a strategy has been finalised to sustain the momentum and, in fact, to accelerate it. According to the strategy chalked out by the ministry, the Secretariat for Industrial Assistance (SIA), which functions as the Secretariat for Foreign Investment Implementation Authority (FIIA), will contact all foreign investors who have obtained FIPB approvals to ascertain the progress of the implementation and the need, if any, to facilitate such an implementation.

This contact would be initially at the operational level and would be upgraded even at the Board levels so that the investors at the highest corporate level become aware that the Government of India is fully committed to ensuring that the FDI inflows into the country are smooth and implementation of projects is quick.

In the event of problems or difficulties coming to notice, the SIA will take up the matter with the appropriate ministry/agency or State Government and bring it before the FIIA or its Fast Track Committee if needed.

A decision has recently been taken to involve the Indian embassies abroad in monitoring the FDI cases emanating from their regions on behalf of FIIA. Follow-up action on reports from Embassies would be taken by FIIA. The Indian Embassies abroad have also been authorised to accept FDI applications, besides the usual practice where applications can be sent directly to SIA either through conventional modes or even through the net.

The SIA has been entrusted to adopt a sector-wise approach in pursuing FDI cases for more effective co-ordination with administrative ministries. In addition to this, the current mechanism of reviewing mega projects and holding meetings on a region-wise basis and meetings with investors of specific countries e.g. USA, Japan, and Germany to mention a few would also continue with greater frequency.

The key element of the strategy is closer and more sustained interaction with the investors on the one hand, with the relevant agencies of the government and institutions on the other hand, to bring a much sharper focus on implementation, to supplement the far-reaching policy changes which have already been put in place.

It is expected that with this, India's image as an attractive investment destination would improve drastically, implementation will become smoother and investors would have a greater confidence that the government and its agencies are totally supportive. The government has been concerned over the reduction in the FDI in-flows, which has forced the government to come out with concrete measures to attract foreign investments.

The position relating to FDI approvals and inflows during the last three years has been as follows:
 

Year	Amount of FDI approved		Amount of FDI Inflows		%age of realisation rate – inflow with approval (in terms of Rupees)
(Jan-Dec)	In Rupees crore	In US $ million	In Rupees crore	In US $ million
1998	30,813.50	7,800.89	13,339.84	3,377.17	43.29
1999	28,366.53	6,753.94	16,867.79	4,016.10	59.46
2000	37,039.45	8,613.83	19,341.74	4,498.07	52.22
2001  (Jan-April)	11,909.76	2,646.61	5,595.61	1,243.50	46.98
TOTAL	108129.24	25815.27	55144.98	13134.84	51.00