Author: Sanjana Joshi, ICRIER

High-level political contacts between India and Japan since the year 2000 have produced a multitude of political documents.

And as Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda wrapped up his official visit to India on 27–29 December, following the annual meeting between the Indian and Japanese prime ministers, the countries’ respective policy establishments unveiled the Vision for the Enhancement of India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership. Read more…

Author: Pravakar Sahoo, IEG

India and China not only survived the financial crisis — over the course of the financial crisis their economies grew. This is the perfect time for India to attract much needed non-debt creating capital flows through foreign direct investment (FDI). The Indian Budget for 2010-11 has rightly proposed to simplify the FDI regime, maintaining FDI flows particularly by recognising ownership and control issues and liberalising the pricing and payment system for technology transfers, trademarks, and brand name and royalty payments. More importantly, the budget shows an intention to introduce user-friendly regulations and guidelines for FDI.

But while India is macro-economically well placed to attract FDI inflows, merely showing an intention to introduce user-friendly regulations without addressing the core regulatory, institutional and policy issues affecting FDI may not be enough to attract the huge amounts of FDI the country needs. Read more…