Govt convinced public to allow FDI in defence manufacturing: Jaitley

Jaitley is in the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Washington, Oct 10: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is in the US, has said the government has been able to change the public opinion in favour of FDI in sensitive areas like defence manufacturing which were earlier considered sacrosanct.

Jaitley is in the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. His remarks came during an investors roundtable New York jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the US-India Business Council.

"We have been able to invest FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in almost every sector of the economy," Jaitley said as he highlighted investment opportunities in India.

"Areas that were earlier considered sacrosanct, like defence manufacturing, we have been able to convince public opinion that it is better to invite foreign expertise to set up manufacturing in India," he said.

Jaitley, who was the defence minister till recently, said suddenly a lot of joint ventures are coming up for investment in the defence sector. He also said that the body which Foreign Investment Promotion Board which sanctioned FDI proposals had outlived its purpose because of liberalisation in FDI rules.

"Ninety-five percent of FDI anyway comes in through the automatic route...I had spoken about doing away with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board," he said.

PTI