Only a few swallows...

The flurry of tech FDIS offers timely reassurance, but much more is needed to attract foreign capital

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The flurry of investment announcements by global technology majors is a ringing endorsement of the Indian market. At a time when foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country has been subdued for nearly two years, the latest commitments-Google's $15 billion, Microsoft's $17 billion, and Amazon's $35 billion-offer timely reassurance. India can certainly use this capital-and a lot more. Gross FDI inflows were largely stagnant at around $71 billion in FY23 and FY24, according to CareEdge, before rising modestly to $81 billion last year. Even so, it is creditable that amid global political turbulence and a deteriorating business climate, India attracted $50 billion in inflows in the first half of the current fiscal-a 16% year-on-year increase. Globally, FDI flows have shrunk sharply. Heightened geopolitical risk, supply-chain realignment, and protectionist impulses have pushed the global FDI-to-GDP ratio down to 1.3% in 2024 from a post-pandemic high of 2.4% in 2021. The biggest beneficiaries of the China+1 strategy in recent years have been countries such as Vietnam and Mexico, as well as resource-rich ec