Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma for FDI cap hike in telecom, defence

NEW DELHI: In a bid to spur investments, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma today "strongly favoured" raising the FDI cap in telecom as well as defence sector and said he will meet global investors to address their concerns, particularly in multi-brand retail.

Before leaving for 10-day visit from tommorow to Helsinki, St Petersburg, Belfast and London, Sharma said he will address all the concerns of foreign retail sector investors and ensure all help in setting up stores.

Sharma said his ministry would move the Cabinet for further liberalisation in other sectors as well which hold potential for FDI inflows.

"I am strongly in favour of raising the cap in telecom sector. I have discussed this with the Telecom and Finance ministers and once we have the proposal, we will move the Cabinet for raising the cap to 100 per cent, and also for FDI in defence because we want defence manufacturing to be here," he told reporters.

He said his ministry wants global majors in defence sector to partner both with the PSUs and the private sector to manufacture weapon systems in India.

"Defence technologies have multiple applications including industrial applications. We want the global majors to partner with the Indian entities...so that the big outgo of foreign exchange could also be brought down and domestic manufacturing improves and jobs are created," he added.

On hiking FDI cap in defence sector, he said that he has written to the Defence Minister and would meet him on the matter.

"He (the Defence Minister) has written back to me suggesting that we will discuss this matter in a meeting," Sharma said.