Indians send conflicting signals on foreign investments: Tracker

NEW DELHI: The average Indian citizen and voter seems to be in two minds when it comes to foreign investments. She seems to welcome it as a positive for India but remains quite wary of foreign investors at the same time, according to the IANS-CVoter Consumer Tracker.

This ambivalence was revealed during a nationwide survey conducted by CVoter during the third week of October, 2021. The only area where there was no doubt was the overwhelming mistrust of China and Chinese investments in the country.

Only 10.3 per cent of the respondents wanted foreign investments to be allowed free entry under a free market route. Close to 56 per cent of respondents wanted India to be protectionist and impose restrictions and controls on foreign investments while 31.2 per cent wanted India to partially allow foreign investments with strict regulations and rules.

The survey pointed out that India had become one of the largest recipients of foreign investment in the world. Close to 72 per cent of Indians found this to be a positive development while 11.4 per cent found the development negative ND 16 per cent found it to be a little bit of both. Close to 80 per cent also thought that the Narendra Modi government was successful in attracting foreign investment. But in the same breath, a majority of respondents wanted India to adopt a protectionist policy while dealing with foreign investments.

Respondents were asked if multinational companies helped create employment opportunities and create better working conditions for workers. Surprisingly 43 per cent of the respondents agreed with this while close to 52 per cent were of the firm opinion that multinationals exploited their workers. The tracker showed that a majority of Indians welcome foreign investment in India. But at the same time, they feel that dominance of foreign investors in certain key sectors is dangerous for the country.

However, 48.6 per cent of Indians also find foreign investors' dominance to be extremely dangerous in the entertainment sector including movies, OTT platforms and TV channels. (IANS)

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