The FIPB has allowed Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) of France to set up a non-banking finance company. The approval came after the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in the Finance Ministry and RBI gave their final consent to the proposal. The proposal had been pending for some time now.

The largest proposal approved was from a Swiss company Stribes Arcolab for hiking its stake from 68 per cent to 74 per cent by injecting Rs 70 crore.The proposal of BPL Cellular Holdings to hike the equity of the foreign company from 40 per cent to 44 per cent by infusing FDI worth Rs 3 crore has also been given the green signal.

Japanese auto major Toyota Motor Corporation's (TMC) component manufacturing arm Toyoda Iron Works has been given the nod to invest Rs 1.4 crore for designing, developing and manufacturing components for TMC's joint venture in India. The unit would be set up in a joint venture with the Stanzen group and would be located at the Toyota Industrial Park in Bangalore which was cleared last week. Toyota would control 82.5 per cent stake in the joint venture company while the Indian company would hold the remaining 17.5 per cent.

The FIPB also cleared ABN Amro's proposal for the manufacture of large and medium sized multi-modal fleets by setting up a 100-per cent subsidiary here. The foreign equity would be to the tune of Rs 1.5 crore.Meanwhile, the board deferred a decision on Cannon and Sunrider International. Otto Burlington has also been allowed to bring in Rs 14 crore. Electronic Hi-tech Computers has been permitted to pump in Rs 28 crore worth of FDI.In the software sector, nine foreign investment proposals were cleared, including the application by Baan IT Park, for providing infrastructure to software developing companies. The project will be set up at a cost of Rs 44 crore.

The company, to be based in Bangalore, would be a wholly-owned subsidiary. Sanmarco Texmech has been granted the approval to set up a textile machinery unit at a cost of Rs 13 crore.