The Finance Ministry will take a call on 35 foreign direct investment proposals, including that of Bharti Shipyard and Verizon Communications, later this month.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) headed by Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram will hold its 210th meeting on September 16 and there are 35 proposals on the agenda, the Ministry said.

Bharti Shipyard, an Indian company in shipbuilding sector which has existing FDI through FIIs and NRIs, proposes to undertake defence activities.

The FIPB had deferred decision on the proposal at its one of the meetings held in July last year.

Verizon Communications India is seeking approval to increase foreign equity participation by its foreign parent from 74 per cent to 100 per cent. The FIPB had deferred the decision on the proposal at its meeting held on August 1.

Among other proposals that are in the agenda include that of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, IndusInd Bank, HBM Private Equity India, Hatsoff Helicopter Training, Instant Global Money Transfer and Tara India Fund IV Trust.

India allows FDI in most of the sectors through automatic route, but in certain sensitive sectors like defence, pharma and telecom, investors require the prior approval of FIPB.

The Government is taking several steps to boost FDI in the country. It has de-licensed several defence products for private players, besides hiking the FDI cap to 49 per cent in the sensitive sector.

Railways sector too has been opened for foreign investment and the Government has introduced a bill to hike the FDI ceiling in insurance sector to 49 per cent from the current 26 per cent.

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