The Centre Wednesday announced liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) policy for the sectors of civil aviation, petroleum and natural gas, mining in titanium, industrial parks and development projects, besides commodity exchanges and credit information companies. Under the new policy, approved by the Cabinet, caps for the FDI and FII categories were being fixed and these would be disclosed shortly by the respective Ministries, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said.

For the petroleum sector, the compulsory disinvestment of 26 per cent equity in favour of the Indian partner was being delinked, the minister said.

In some sectors, the FDI component would be capped at 26 per cent, while the remaining 23 per cent would be allowed under the foreign institutional investor (FII) route, he said. The caps for the two components would slightly vary from sector to sector.

In the aviation sector, the 49 per cent FDI would be placed under the automatic route for the non-resident Indians (NRIs).

India hopes to attract foreign investment of 26 billion dollars in the current fiscal year, compared to 16 billion dollars received last year.

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