FDI inflow to India likely to continue: Nagesh Kumar

Rituparna Bhuyan of CNBC-TV18 spoke to Nagesh Kumar, Chief Economist of UNESCAP or the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific about the world investment report.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: What according to you are the prospects for FDI inflows into India in the coming years?

A: UNESCAP conducted a survey of 179 global companies around the world asking them which are your best investment destinations in 2012-2014 and the ranking that they got of countries showed India on the 3rd place, after China and United States.

Q: After February, basically after the budget and the announcement of proposals like GAAR or retrospective tax amendments, there have been considerable concern among many investors. Do you think that proposals like GAAR or the retro amendment will impact investment inflows into India?

A: I don't think that long-term investments like FDI would be affected so much by the proposal about GAAR, which is actually about the short-term investments, the portfolio investments and also the isolated cases of tax dispute like the Vodafone issue.

I do not think they would affect the overall business climate and prospects of doing good business in India are not affected by that. These are isolated cases and they are possibly more concerned with issues like GAAR and the short term capital flows which are highly volatile in nature.

Q: Which means FDI will continue to come in irrespective of such concern?

A: Yes I think so.