The Government on Tuesday approved 21 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals worth Rs 2,410 crore.

These include US pharma major Pfizer’s plan to invest Rs 800 crore in an operating company and Sterlite Networks Ltd’s Rs 500-crore plan to engage in “additional activities of telecom sector”.

Of the total FDI proposals cleared, eight relate to pharmaceuticals worth Rs 1,842.55 crore, which have been approved subject to certain conditions, such as the level of production of essential drugs and investment in research and development at the time of foreign investment would be maintained for five years.

Apart from Pfizer, the key pharma proposals that got the nod from Foreign Investment Promotion Board are Arch Pharmalabs’ Rs 372.3-crore proposal for induction of foreign investments and Braun Singapore’s Rs 248-crore proposal among others.

Other key proposals include City Union Bank, Tamil Nadu’s Rs 61.5-crore rights issue proposal to carry out the business of banking operations in private sector.

The Government deferred 11 FDI proposals, including that of Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt Ltd to induct foreign equity.

It rejected 12 proposals including that of Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd to source news and current affairs content from companies for bundling with its content and transmitting to other countries.

bindu.menon@thehindu.co.in

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