Govt’s stimulus report highlights FDI inflow, support to NBFCs

New Delhi, Dec. 13 (IANS): The Finance Ministry on Friday presented a status report on the impact of the recently announced stimulus measures, highlighting that inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) reached a record level during the April-June period, among other things.

Presenting the report, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian said that a total of INR 4.47 lakh crore has been sanctioned towards non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and housing finance companies (HFC) to support retail lending. The total sanctioned support includes INR 1.29 lakh crore for pool-buy-outs of assets.

He said during the first half of the ongoing fiscal, FDI inflow reached $35 billion against $31 billion recorded during the same period last year.

“Continuous liberalisation has resulted in record FDI inflows: $35 billion in H1 2019-20 as against $31 billion in H1 2018-19,” said the presentation by the ministry.

Subramanian also said that the government and the public sector enterprises have cleared their dues in two stages.

On the steps taken to ease liquidity, Subramanian spoke of the INR 25,000 crore alternative investment fund for stalled projects, which the government recently announced.

He also said that credit expansion has been carried out by public sector banks whereby INR 60,314 crore equity was invested in the PSBs, which have disbursed INR 4.9 lakh crore so far.

The CEA also pointed out the recent disinvestment decisions regarding PSU majors BPCL, CONCOR and SCI.

He also said that India has jumped to the 63rd position in World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings, adding that the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) has helped the country in this respect.