What the Indian Election Means for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India

© 2014 Prof. Farok J. Contractor, Rutgers University

Narendra Modi, the candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and presumptive Prime Minister, is portrayed as pro-business and a man of decisive action. The rival Congress party, in power for the last 10 years, actually did more to weaken the apparatus of bureaucratic controls and open the door to incoming foreign investment than in any prior decade. However, the Congress Party’s record has been sullied by exposure of hundreds of cases of corruption and misdemeanors by the raucous free press that exists in India. Whether it is a BJP or a Congress Party-led coalition makes little difference—since the two parties are not too far apart in economic policies—compared with how India tackles the real impediments to growth, such as infrastructure, electricity, a unified tax structure, and labor law reform. … CONTINUED ON ARCHIVE