With continued liberalisation of the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy, procedural relaxations, the sustained growth in the economy, and a favourable investment regime, a horde of global corporations are keen on investing in India. India continues to be regarded as one of the fastest expanding economies and the growth outlook for 2008–09 has been projected at a high sub-eight per cent by different rating agencies.

Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Mr Ajay Shankar has said that despite India seeing a slight moderation in production growth, it was still the preferred destinations for overseas investors and automobiles and construction equipment segments are amongst the sectors gaining mileage.

Further, according to a report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), "Our close monitoring of projects through the CMIE CapEx service shows acceleration in the announcement of fresh investment." The CaPex service, with new projects worth US$ 44.89 billion in July, said that on an average, the monthly capturing of fresh investments was US$ 15.32 billion in 2005–06, which increased to US$ 25.18 billion in 2006–07, and to US$ 32.97 billion in 2007–08. In the first quarter of the current fiscal, CMIE CapEx service received projects worth US$ 117.70 billion, averaging at US$ 39.14 billion, the report informed.

FDI equity inflows between April–September 2008 were US$ 17.21 billion, a growth of 137 per cent over the same period last year. Inflow of FDI equity for the month of September 2008 alone was US$ 2.56 billion, a growth of 259 per cent over the same month in last year. Further, October 2008 has witnessed FDI inflows of US$ 1.49 billion, thereby increasing the FDI inflows for the period April-October 2008 to US$ 18.7 billion, according to Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath.

These inflows were mainly into sectors like services, computer hardware and software firms, construction and real estate. The government further stated that India is likely to get US$ 35 billion of FDI, by March 2009. Sectors receiving the maximum FDI equity inflows between April–August 2008 are the services sector with US$ 2.34 billion, construction activities including roads and highways with US$ 1.64 billion, housing and real estate with US$ 1.62 billion and computer hardware and software with US$ 1.36 billion as equity inflows.

During 2008–09, till July 2008, FDI equity inflows totalled to US$ 12.32 billion. Cumulative FDI inflows till July 2008 were US$ 74.83 billion.

According to the August report by the Reserve Bank of India, FDI received in the first quarter of fiscal year 2009 (US$ 10.07 billion) had exceeded the total FDI inflow for fiscal year 2005–06 (US$ 8.96 billion). India's FDI inflow until 2005–06, was below US$ 10 billion annually. In 2006–07 India received US$ 22 billion and it went up to US$ 32 billion in 2007–08.

According to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monthly bulletin, NRIs have pumped in US$ 513 million (on net basis) in NRI deposits in September 2008, which is the highest since December 2006.

The World Bank will be giving India an added US$ 3 billion a year till 2011, as part of a larger plan to provide US$ 100 billion of additional liquidity to developing economies.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has cleared around 30 proposals accounting for more than US$ 1.21 billion in the last few months. The approvals for such proposals have gone up by about 50 per cent in 2008 as against 2007.