India: MNRE Creates FDI Cell to Process Proposals

The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has created a foreign direct investment (FDI) cell within the ministry to process proposals of foreign acquisitions in domestic firms.

The government had recently reviewed the FDI policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers and acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Following this, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade in its revised policy stated that an entity of a country that shares land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only under the government route.

Countries which share land borders with India are China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan.

It had also added that FDI proposals involving such investments from these countries should be processed by the concerned ministry or department.