Mumbai: Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into the country stood at $15.7 billion in 2006-07 compared to $5.5 billion during 2005-06, representing a growth of 185 per cent, union minister of commerce and industry Kamal Nath said.

This is also the first time that FDI equity inflows into India have crossed the $10 billion-mark. If reinvested earnings and other capital inflows are also included, the total inflows in 2006-07 add up to $19.5 billion compared to $7.7 billion during the same period last year showing a growth of 153 per cent, he said.

During the first quarter of the financial year 2007-08, the FDI inflows have been $4.9 billion as against $1.7 billion during the corresponding quarter of 2006-07, registering a growth of more than 185 per cent.

The first six months of the current calendar year (January-June 2007) witnessed FDI inflows of $11.4 billion as against $3.6 billion during the same period in 2006, a growth of 218 per cent.

Services, telecom electrical equipments, real estate and transportation are the 5 major sectors receiving FDI inflows in 2007-08.

Top investors included: Vodafone (Mauritius) ($ 801 million - telecom), Matsushita Electric Works, Japan, ($ 342 million-electrical products), GA Global Investments Ltd., ($258 million-National Stock Exchange), EMAAR Holdings, Mauritius ($204 million-real estate construction), L B India Holdings Mauritius Ltd. ($118 million-real estate) are the top foreign investments received during the current financial year.

Delhi office of the RBI registered inflows of $1.3 billion amounting to around 36 per cent of the total inflows during the year. Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad are the other major regions, which have received FDI inflows. The five regions mentioned above constitute two-thirds of the total inflows received.

Top countries investing in the country during the first two months of the financial year ($2.9 billion) included Mauritius ($1.9 billion) while the rest came from countries like Japan, Cyprus, the US and Singapore.

Meanwhile, industrial production recorded a double-digit growth of 11 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, as per quick estimates of industrial production released by the Central Statistical Organisation.

Manufacturing sector, which has around 80 per cent weightage in the index of industrial production (IIP), also showed double-digit growth of 11.9 per cent during the first quarter of 2007-08 as compared to a growth of 11.7 per cent in the previous year.

During 2006-07, the sector registered a growth of 12.5 per cent, up from 9.1 per cent in 2005-06. This was the highest growth registered by the manufacturing sector since 1995-96.

Among the use-base economic sub-groups, capital goods have registered an impressive growth of 22.3 per cent during April-June 2007-08.

The industries which have shown a noteworthy performance during April-June 2007-08 include wood and wood products; furniture and fixtures (104.7 per cent), Jute and other vegetable fibre textiles (except cotton) (30.1 per cent), food products (27.1 per cent), basic metal and alloy industries (20.1 per cent), machinery and equipment other than transport equipment (19.2 per cent) and rubber, plastic, petroleum and coal products (10.8 per cent).