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.”

“First and foremost, the infrastructure deficit in the country will need to be addressed. There is an urgent need for aggressive investment to improve the infrastructure through higher levels of FDI. The government is fully engaged in this process. And my ministry will be engaged in this closely to explore new avenues to harness FDI for infrastructure into India,” Mukherjee said, indicating that his Ministry won’t just be dealing with diplomatic issues alone.

“In the coming years, I feel FDI will play an important role (for India) to reach a higher share than the present level of global trade. With the congenial policy we have in place, it should be possible. In fact, investors are raring to come to India,” Mukherjee said, before seconding the concerns expressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday. “As the PM mentioned, problems are not from the outside, but from inside. Sometimes, we are quibbling over issues that are non-issues. If we can avoid that, I don’t see any reason why India should not succeed in getting large investments from across the world,” he said.

Admitting that there is “corruption” and “inefficiency” in the bureaucracy, Mukherjee said that reforms in the bureaucracy should be ‘very fast.’ “What we need is to change mindsets - entry into new arenas always cause uncertainty,” he added, citing the example of the opposition he faced from the pharma industry when signing on the WTO agreement in 1994. “The pharma industry was very disturbed about the TRIPS agreement. Today, the industry is one of the top performers,” he said.