FDI in telecom jumped five times in last three years: Manoj Sinha

The foreign direct investment (FDI) in the telecom sector rose to $6.2 billion in 2017-18 from $1.3 billion in 2015-16, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said.

He said that the draft National Digital Communications Policy, 2018 aims to attract investment of $100 billion or about Rs.6.5 lakh crore in the Digital Communications Sector.

Telecom sector in India has witnessed some upheaval in the last 2-3 years. There were many mergers and acquisitions and a couple of unfortunate insolvency proceedings. However, consolidation in the sector will strengthen it as the worst is behind us," he added.

India has announced plans to launch 5G service by 2020 which provides big investment opportunity, Sinha added further.

It is absolutely necessary to create semi-skilled jobs in the short run, and the Telecom sector will play an important role in creating those employment opportunities, he added.

Indian economy is back on the growth trajectory and the 2nd quarter of 2018, GDP showed a promising growth at 8.2 percent, and India is poised to become a third largest economy in the world over the next two decades. Therefore, the Investors/Telecom operators across the world are invited to be part of the growth story of India Telecom through Foreign Direct Investments.

Meanwhile, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary (Telecom) pointed out that the telecom sector has always been one of the core sectors attracting highest FDI inflows and this overall this trend has been positive for the past two decades.

She said that National Digital Communications Policy, 2018, will be the new platform for convergence of all the stakeholders, where we will be working with growth-oriented investment perspective, rather than with fiscal perspective alone.