India may ease media, realty investment norms

Friday, 07 January 2005, 20:30 IST
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MUMBAI: Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said Friday that the government was looking at further liberalising the norms for investments in the fast-growing media and real estate sectors. Addressing a session at the three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, inaugurated here Friday, Chidambaram said the government was studying the need to open the media industry further to foreign investors. "The opening is gradual... A group of ministers is looking whether any further opening is required. We are looking at the need to open it up further," he said. Foreign investors are currently allowed to take up to a 26 percent stake in news and current affairs publications and up to 74 percent in technical and other non-news media. Chidambaram said the government was also looking at easing norms for overseas investments in the booming real estate sector in rural as well as urban areas. The government was exploring the possibility of reducing the minimum area norm for foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows for township construction from 100 acres, he said. The real estate industry wants the government to reduce the minimum area norm for FDI inflows to 20 acres from the current 100 acres. Industry sources say the existing limit puts roadblocks in large-scale FDI inflows into the real estate sector as vacant land of such magnitude was not available in cities.
Source: IANS
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