The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) on Monday announced creation of Foreign Direct Investment Cell for processing FDI proposals.
The two-member FDI cell will consist of Amitesh Kumar Sinha, Joint Secretary (Solar), MNRE as the nodal officer and Ruchin Gupta, Director, MNRE.
“The Government of India had recently reviewed the FDI policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers and acquisitions of Indian companies due to current COVID-19 pandemic,” MNRE stated in the official notice.
In April, the central government announced that all foreign direct investment from countries sharing a land border would require prior government clearance, in short, they cannot go through a so-called automatic route. The objective of this move was to impose restrictions on opportunistic takeovers coming from China.
The notice further added that FDI proposals involving such investments from these countries should be processed by the concerned ministry or department.
In the March quarter, HDFC said the People’s Bank of China raised its stake in the biggest housing mortgage lender from 0.8 percent to 1.01 percent.
According to the Government of India estimates FDI from China stood at a total of $1.8 billion between 2015 and 2019.