Finance Ministry to take up 42 FDI proposals next week

NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry will take up 42 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals, including that of BNP Paribas, Tata Steel and PTC India Financial Services, next week.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) headed by Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan is scheduled to meet on May 20 here.

As per the Finance Ministry, 15 proposals are new ones and 14 are those on which decisions were deferred in the previous FIPB meetings.

Besides, 11 companies after amending their earlier requests are seeking the FIPB's nod for bringing in FDI. They include Tata Steel and Star News Broadcasting (Touch Tele Content (I) Ltd).

Some of the deferred proposals which are on the agenda include those of Park Controls and Communications, Bangalore; NCBG Holdings, Inc, Cayman Islands and Mango Holding, Bangladesh.

In its last meeting, FIPB had cleared 21 FDI proposals amounting to Rs 1,027 crore. In all it had taken up 47 proposals but deferred decisions on 17 applications while rejecting nine.

FDI inflows into the country during April-February, 2010-11, dipped by 29 per cent to Rs 83,687 from Rs 1,17,622 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.