Outward Foreign Direct Investment from India: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is an important vehicle through which the multinational enterprises (MNEs) expand their global business. Before the initiation of the liberalisation measures, India was more of a recipient than a contributor of foreign direct investment in the global economy. led to an astounding The ongoing liberalisation measures embarked in 1991 growth of outward FDI in India. This study performed a comparative analysis of the outward FDI from India during the post-liberalisation period (1992 to 2018) using a time series data set collected from the UNCTAD. The analysis revealed that the outward FDI from India was increasing faster than the inward FDI, both in terms of FDI stock as well as FDI flows, in the post-liberalisation period. At the same time, growth of outward FDI from India was much faster than that from the developing countries and from the world; therefore, the share of India in the global outward FDI and in the outward FDI from developing countries has been steadily increasing. This reflected the growing presence of Indian multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the global economy in the post-liberalisation period.