In his first public appearance as the country’s new External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee underlined that the linkage between India’s “security policy and economic policy” should guide foreign policy and finally made it official that there is no country-specific Foreign Direct Investment policy in the works.

This assumes significance days ahead of Chinese Premier Hu Jintao’s visit given that the National Security Council had proposed a “security FDI watchlist,” which included China, Pakistan, North Korea among others. As The Indian Express reported last week, the Government was veering towards rejecting the NSC’s idea.

Dismissing a question about the reported country-specific FDI policy, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “It’s not like that...Our policy is not country-specific. We are inviting everybody, everybody is welcome to come.”

Indicating that too much has been read into the few instances of Chinese companies not being considered for projects, Mukherjee said, “You can’t just hype one odd case. If one company is not (cleared), you cannot say China is not allowed.”

In fact, Mukherjee, speaking at an ICRIER conference today, said that “security policy and economic policy are interlinked...not compartmentalized.” Accordingly, in his first interaction with MEA officials, Mukherjee has requested them to “undertake a study on what should be the direction of the foreign policy, keeping in view a sustained GDP growth of 8-10 per cent over the next 15 years.”

“This (study’s findings) will be reflected in our policy formulation,” stressed Mukherjee. While stating that India’s role in the global economy is of “no mean significance,” the minister said that the government had to surmount a lot of challenges in order to maintain its “momentum of economic growth.”

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