The Indian Council of Investors (ICI), an investor association group, has written to the Finance Ministry requesting them to review investment norms with regard to possible takeover of India’s strategic assets by Chinese entities, during Covid-19 crises. “For Foreign Investment Investors, some level of country-wise or region wise wise limits may be prescribed based on investment trends over the past few years. This to ensure that there is proper scrutiny of all purchases/investments into Indian assets by Chinese state-owned vehicles or Chinese proxy state vehicles,” the ICI letter said. As of now there is no country-wise FDI or FPI limit but the norms are same for all foreign players. Brokers and experts told BusinessLine that like global sentiments, there was also a subtle outrage against Chinese investments in India too as the neighbouring country is being blamed for hiding vital facts with regard to spread of Coronavirus in January 2020. Also, the letter requests the government to look at both FDI and FPI investments norms and initiate a strong approval based regime for foreign investments when such investments cross a certain thresholds.

The letter says that asset including prime land, ports, power plants etc should be protected from predatory buying by China as it has protected its stock markets from the crash that the other world markets have undergone. US, Japan, Australia and even countries in Europe in the past few weeks have increased their vigilance and restrictions against Chinese investments in their country.

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