New Delhi, Mar 4 (KNN) India has attracted a total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow of 67.54 billion dollars during April to December 2020, said a data shared by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry on Thursday.

It is the highest ever for the first ninth months of a financial year and 22 per cent higher as compared to the first ninth months of 2019-20 (55.14 billion dollars), the data added.

FDI equity inflow grew by 40 per cent in the first 9 months of F.Y. 2020-21 to 51.47 billion dollars compared to 36.77 billion dollars year ago period.

''FDI inflow increased by 37 per cent in 3rd Quarter of 2020-21 to 26.16 billion dollars compared to 19.09 billion dollars in 3rd quarter of 2019-20. FDI inflow also showed positive growth of 24 per cent in the month of December, 2020 to 9.22 billion dollars compared to 7.46 billion dollars in December, 2019,'' the data said.

FDI is a major driver of economic growth and an important source of non-debt finance for the economic development of India. It has been the endeavour of the Government to put in place an enabling and investor friendly FDI policy, the Commerce Ministry said.

The intent all this while has been to make the FDI policy more investor friendly and remove the policy bottlenecks that have been hindering the investment inflows into the country. The steps taken in this direction during the last six and a half years have borne fruit, as is evident from the ever-increasing volumes of FDI inflows being received into the country, it added.

Measures taken by the Government on the fronts of FDI policy reforms, investment facilitation and ease of doing business have resulted in increased FDI inflows into the country. The following trends in India’s Foreign Direct Investment are an endorsement of its status as a preferred investment destination amongst global investors.