India 'second favourite for foreign investment'
India is now the most attractive country in the world for foreign direct investment after China, according toan annual survey of global investor confidence bymanagement consultants A. T. Kearney.
ADVERTISEMENT
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, logis-tical and regulatory barriers to take advantage of surging investor confidence.
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.
India's rise to second place from third last year came at the expense of the US, which fell to number three. Although the UK held its ground in fourth place, other western countries tumbled. Germany declined from fifth to ninth place, France from sixth to 14th, Italy from ninth to 19th and Spain from 13th to 17th place.
India attracted just $5.3bn (�4.5bn, ￡3bn) in FDI in 2004, equivalent to 0.8 per cent of global FDI inflows, which rose 2 per cent to $648bn in 2004, the first rise since 2000.
Separately, a US consultancy, World Steel Dynamics, forecast that India could become a large exporter of steel by the turn of the decade, potentially dealing a blow to the profitability of the booming steel business in Asia through the effect of pushing down prices.
It said India could export nearly 20m tonnes of the commodity in 2010-11, four times the amount this year, as a result of large planned increases in production in the next five years.
Netherlands-based Mittal Steel and Posco of South Korea, two of the world's biggest steelmakers, are both due to build large steel plants in eastern India, each with a production capacity of 10m-12m tonnes a year. Tata Steel, Essar, Jindal Vijayanagar Steel and Ispat Industries, four private-sector Indian steelmakers, are also planning expansion projects.
The extra steel from India streaming into world markets could potentially push down steel prices, which have stayed high for much of the past three years and have given a fillip to the earnings of virtually all the world's biggest steel producers. The companies that would be hardest hit if this happens are most likely to be based in Japan and South Korea - traditionally strong exporters of steel to other Asia markets.
“中国仍对外国直接投资最具吸引力”
英国《金融时报》记者乔?约翰逊(Jo Johnson)新德里报道
2005年12月9日 星期五
管理咨询公司科尔尼(AT Kearney)对全球投资者信心进行的一项年度调查显示，印度现已成为世界上仅次于中国、对外国直接投资最具吸引力的国家。
中国自2002年以来一直占据榜首位置，而（投资者）对印度的兴趣上升则是最近以来的进展，与此同步的是，新德里的改革派做出了新的努力，更为热烈地欢迎外国直接投资，将其作为资本、技术和专业技能的来源。
科尔尼的报告称：“印度正处于吸引外国直接投资的前列。”不过，报告同时警告称，该国需要克服狭隘的商业利益和基础设施、物流和监管方面的障碍，才能受惠于不断飙升的投资者信心。
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%。
调查发现，对营收增长的追求，正推动企业以“9/11”以来的最高速度重新谋求海外发展。54%的高管人士表示，他们计划提升在外国投资的水平。
印度在排行榜中的位置由去年的第三位升至第二位，而美国则由去年的第二降至第三。尽管英国保住了第四的位置，但其它西欧国家的排名均有所下滑。
2004年，印度吸引的外国直接投资仅为53亿美元，相当于全球外国直接投资总量的0.8%。当年的全球外国直接投资总量上升2%至6480亿美元，为2000年以来首次出现增长。其中，美国吸引了960亿美元外国直接投资，是全球最大的外国直接投资接受国；中国吸引了606亿美元。
尽管印度成功地将自己定位为商业流程和信息技术的外包中心，但这些活动往往通过第三方交易而非外国直接投资，转化为印度在服务领域的出口。
科尔尼表示：“与中国相比，印度的技术和信息技术(IT)导向型经济获得的资本密集型外国直接投资较少。中国整个制造业基础在相当大程度上已由外国跨国公司建成。”
