In its latest Global Investment Trade Report 2018, UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), reported that India attracted FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) amounting to $22 billion in the first half of 2018, Press Trust of India has reported. This contributed to South Asia’s 13 per cent rise in FDI inflows in the same period.

While China attracted the most FDI, India is ranked at the 10th position. Though it lay behind emerging economies like Brazil, it was ahead of Indonesia, South Africa and Russia.

The report also noted that the global FDI fell by 41 per cent in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period last year. As per James Zhan - UNCTAD’s Director of Division on Investment and Enterprise, overall the global picture remains gloomy.

This was due to large repatriations of accumulated foreign earnings by parent US companies from their subsidiaries set up abroad, following tax reforms under the Trump administration.

Though the value of greenfield FDI projects announced in Asia was at an all-time high, the surge was fuelled by an increasing investment activity in South-East Asian nations like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

This may be a cause of worry for India as these countries will be competing with it in attracting manufacturing facilities that will shift out of China on account of rising wages in the oriental nation.