The World Investment Report 2021 by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), released Monday, said global FDI flows have been severely hit by the pandemic and they plunged by 35 per cent in 2020 to USD 1 trillion from USD 1.5 trillion the previous year. And according to this report, India has received $64 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2020 and has hence become the fifth largest country in the world in terms of foreign investment.
FDI in India increased by 27% to $64 billion in 2020. Whereas in 2019 it was $51 billion. With acquisitions in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, the country has become the fifth-largest recipient of FDI in the world.
The pandemic boosted demand for digital infrastructure and services globally. This led to the higher value of greenfield FDI project announcements to the ICT industry, rising by more than 22% to $81 billion. Announcements of major projects in the ICT industry also included an investment of $2.8 billion by Amazon in India.
The report said that the second wave of the Covid-19 affected the overall economic activity in the country, but its strong fundamentals provided optimism in the medium term.
Lockdowns caused by Covid-19 around the world slowed down existing investment projects, and prospects of a recession led multinational enterprises (MNEs) to reassess new projects.
