India oks $984 mln of foreign investment plans

India oks $984 mln of foreign investment plans

NEW DELHI – The government said on Tuesday it approved 17 foreign direct investment proposals worth 45.51 billion rupees ($984 million), but rejected a tie-up between Europe's EADS and India's top engineering firm Larsen & Toubro.

The statement issued by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the nodal agency that clears foreign investment proposals, gave no reason for the rejection to set up a manufacturing joint venture for defence equipment by the firms.

The government approved plans by the local telecoms arm of Russia's Sistema to receive 30.51 billion rupees as foreign investment, the statement said.

The agency has sought the cabinet committee approval for Alstrom's proposal to set up a joint-venture company with a foreign investment of 4.9 billion rupees, as the project cost exceeded a regulatory limit of 6 billion rupees.

Pepsico Inc's plans to infuse 9.28 billion rupees of foreign equity to its India arm was also referred to the cabinet committee, the statement added.