India is now a more popular foreign investment destination than China and the US

Yes it is true! India has pipped China and the US to emerge as number one destination for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

As per Financial Times newspaper, a ranking of the top destinations for greenfield investment (measured by estimated capital expenditure) in the first half of 2015 revealed that India was at number one.

India attracted around $3 billion more than China and $4 billion more than the US.

"With midyear data on greenfield FDI now in 2015 looks to be a milestone year for India following its impressive performance in 2014," read the article in FT.

This news will definitely bring cheers to the Narendra Modi government as it has been taking several steps to attract FDI since it came to power in May 2014.

READ ALSO: India is unapologetically bearing its fangs, moves up 16 places to the 55th spot on global competitiveness index.

Modi has unveiled plans like 'Make in India' and 'Digital India' which has changed the mood of investors.

India also improved on World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking. India is currently ranked 142nd among 189 nations in the World Bank's 'Ease of Doing Business 2015' study.

However, experts say India has to work on more reforms like tax policy, labour laws, cutting red tape and issues linked to land acquisition.

The FT data services said that for the past several years, China and the US have vied for FDI supremacy and fought each other nearly to a draw last year, with the US ranking as the number one greenfield destination by number of projects and China coming in first by capital expenditure.

"India is tracking well ahead of where it was at this time last year: it has more than doubled its midyear investment levels, attracting $30 billion by the end of June 2015 compared with $12 billion in the first half of last year," the newspaper said.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Amitabh Kant, said the news reflects the success of India's policy initiatives.

"This success has been achieved at the point of time when globally FDI has fallen by about 16%. India has seen a huge surge in FDI inflows and this is largely because this government has opened up vast sectors," said Kant.

India also moved up 16 positions to rank 55th on a global index of the world's most competitive economies.

Meanwhile, Kant said red tapism was cut and many things were made easy to encourage the competitive spirit.

Satisfying, our efforts are paying off. India becomes the Highest FDI destination for Greenfield projects.

— Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) September 29, 2015

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