India and the European Union have decided to set up a mechanism to facilitate EU investments into the country, India’s Commerce and Industry ministry said. The Investment Facilitation Mechanism (IFM) will allow for a close coordination between the EU and India with an aim to promote and facilitate investment in India. As part of the IFM, an EU delegation to India and the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) agreed to hold regular high-level meetings to assess and facilitate ease of doing business for EU investors in India. This will include identifying and putting in place solutions to procedural impediments faced by EU companies and investors in establishing or running their operations in India.
Commenting on this initiative, Tomasz Koslowski, Ambassador of the European Union to India said, "establishment of the IFM is a right step in the direction of strengthening the trade and investment ties between the EU and India". The EU is the largest foreign investor in India and this initiative helps ensuring a more robust, effective and predictable business environment for the European investors, it added. DIPP Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said ease of doing business is a fundamental priority under the Make in India campaign and the establishment of IFM for facilitating EU investments in India is another step to achieve this goal.
"The IFM has been established with the key objectives of paving the way for identifying and solving problems faced by EU companies and investors with regard to their operations in India, he said. The IFM will cover new investors as well as those already established in India, he added. The new mechanism, he said, is also going to serve as a platform for discussing general suggestions from the point of view of EU companies and investors with regard to ease of doing business in India, "which I am sure, would boost and encourage the EU investors to avail the investment opportunities available in India".
The EU is one of the biggest sources of foreign investment in India with a stock exceeding USD 81.52 billion (more than 4.4 lakh crores INR) as of March 2017. There are more than 6,000 EU companies present in India providing direct and indirect employment to over 6 million people.