Outward foreign direct investment: the Indian experience

Abstract

The development of India, characterised by increased internationalisation of firms in a form of significant overseas investments, mergers and acquisitions, has attracted global interest. The Indian overseas investments have increased ever since the liberalisation of 1991 but exhibited remarkable growth since the 2000s. This paper provides an overview of the changing patterns of Indian outward foreign direct investment especially during the take-off phase – i.e. 2000s onward – and contributes to the literature of overseas investment, especially in the context of emerging market economies. This study finds that the current surge in India’s overseas investment is driven by Indian knowledge-based industries, such as pharmaceuticals, information technology, telecommunications, software, and automobiles. This makes contributions to sustaining long-term domestic and international growth by improving productivity.

Keywords:

• FDI
• Internationalisation
• India
• ODI
• emerging markets
• merger and acquisitions

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Leena Ajit Kaushal, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, India. She has received Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from Centre for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT), Lancaster University, UK and holds a status of ‘Associate of United Kingdom Higher Education Academy’. She has co-authored a book on Managerial Economics by Cengage Publishing. Apart from this she has also edited a book titled 'Global Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation in the Sharing Economy' with IGI Global. She is credited with research publications and case studies in various refereed national and international journals. Her research interest lies in the field of Development Economics, Foreign Direct Investment, Sharing economy and Macroeconomic issues and policies.

Notes

1 http://www.gbv.de/dms/zbw/815934823.pdf retrieved January 2, 2016.

2 India ranks 10th in FDI inflows: UNCTAD report http://www.livemint.com/Money/K1BnZ0ZQV6FhJKsZWcMHVL/India-ranks-10th-in-FDI-inflows-UNCTAD-report.html.

3 ODI and OFDI both represent outward foreign direct investment, hence used interchangeably.

4 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was created in December 1991. In the adopted Declaration the participants of the Commonwealth declared their interaction on the basis of sovereign equality. At present the CIS unites: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.

5 http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/india-and-singapore-to-hold-talks-on-tax-treaty-amendments/articleshow/56227496.cms.

6 http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/webdiaeia2013d4_en.pdf.

7 Data sourced from CMIE (prowess).

8 FDI stocks are presented at book value or historical cost, reflecting prices at the time when the investment was made. For a large number of economies, FDI stocks are estimated by either cumulating FDI flows over a period of time or adding flows to an FDI stock that has been obtained for a particular year from national official sources or the IMF data series on assets and liabilities of direct investment (UNCTAD, 2016).