Gujarat No 5 in FDI inflow in India, far from being No 1 in India-China: Official data "contradict" thinktank claim

A recent Financial Times Group thinktank may have claimed that Gujarat has turned into No 1 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) destination among all Indian and Chinese states (see Counterview, April 22), but the Government of India’s (GoI’s) own FDI data show that, far from being No 1 among the two countries, it is No 5 in India.
While the thinktank, FDI Intelligence, gave the figures of FDI intentions, pointing out Gujarat "attracted $12.4bn and claimed 10 per cent of all capital investment into both countries", pushing Shanghai Municipality (China) to the No 2 position with an investment of $10.57b, the GoI figures show that Gujarat has remained consistently No 5 since 2000 in India.
The quarterly factsheet, released by the GoI’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), shows that FDI inflow into Gujarat was $ 9,507 million between April and December 2015, which is five per cent of that of India’s $191,063 million.
As against Gujarat’s 4.97 per cent of FDI inflow, Greater Delhi’s or National Capital Region’s (NCR’s) was found to be 36.18 per cent (or $69,129 million) that of the country, followed by Maharashtra 17.66 per cent (or $33,756 million), Tamil Nadu’s 14.66 per cent (or $28,023 million), and Karnataka’s 11.45 per cent (or $21,883 million).
The quarterly factsheet, significantly, provides actual FDI inflow data as against the global thinktank FDI Intelligence’s data on what is often called “committed” or “intended” investment, which may or may not fructify on the ground level.

What is equally interesting is that, the cumulative FDI inflow between April 2000 and December 2015 also shows that Gujarat has remained No 5 throughout. With a total FDI inflow of $63,304 million (or five per cent of the total) during the 15-year period, Gujarat remained No 5.
In cumulative investment during the 15 years, Maharashtra has been found to be on the top, with an investment of $386,778 million (29 per cent of India’s), followed by NCR’s 318,153 (22 per cent), Tamil Nadu’s $116,790 million (8 per cent), and Karnataka’s 104,004 (7 per cent).
The thinktank report, interestingly, had praised Gujarat’s performance for being No 1 just in five years. It said, "In 2011, Gujarat was ranked the 14th most popular state for FDI within the two countries.”
It had added, despite Gujarat overtaking all other states of the two countries, “Maharashtra in western India remains one of the strongest performers across the years and it has continued to close the gap on the top Chinese destination, Shanghai Municipality, with the locations attracting $8.3bn and $10.6bn, respectively, in 2015."

Interestingly, the thinktank, in a separate analysis did not find India’s topmost business capital, Ahmedabad, or for that matter any other city, figuring among Asia-Pacific region’s top ten FDI job creating cities.

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Unchecked urbanisation, waste dumping: Study warns of 'invited disaster' as khadi floods threaten half of Surat

An action research report, “Invited Disaster: Khadi Floods in Surat City”, published by two civil rights groups, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti and the People's Union for Civil Liberties, Surat, states that nearly half of Gujarat's top urban conglomerate—known for its concentration of textile and diamond polishing industries—is affected by the dumping of debris and solid waste, along with the release of treated and untreated sewage into the khadis (rivulets), thereby increasing the risk of flood disaster.

Polymath academy or echo chamber? A personal take on knowledge, control, and WhatsApp moderation

A few months back, I was made a member of a WhatsApp group called Polymath Academy. Frankly, I didn’t know what the word polymath meant until its administrator, veteran Gujarat-based sociologist Vidyut Joshi — with whom I have been interacting since the mid-1990s when he was with the Gandhi Labour Institute — told me it refers to a person with an exceptional academic record.

Two decades on, hunger still haunts Gujarat: Survey exposes stark gap behind poverty claims

A Niti Aayog report , released about two years ago, estimated that in Gujarat — which our powers-that-be have long considered a model state — 11.66% of people are "multidimensionally poor," a term referring to an index that seeks to estimate "multiple and simultaneous deprivations" at the household level across three macro categories: health, education, and living standards.

English proficiency for empowerment: Modi’s SCOPE vision contrasts Amit Shah’s remark

While Union Home Minister Amit Shah may have asserted that soon a time would come when those speaking English in the country would “feel ashamed”, it is ironic that Narendra Modi, when he was Gujarat chief minister, had launched what was called the SCOPE programme, actively involving the University of Cambridge to provide opportunities to the youth of Gujarat to "become not just job seekers but job creators (entrepreneurs)."

Whither whistleblower concerns? Air India crash: Govt of India report suggests human error

Is the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India, seeking to bail out Boeing in its preliminary report released recently despite the top MNC's whistleblower concerns ? It would seem so, if the Ministry's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau's (AAIB's) preliminary findings into the catastrophic crash of Air India’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, registration VT-ANB, which went down shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad on 12 June 2025, killing all 241 on board and 19 on the ground, is any indication.

Search This Blog