Impact of Global Financial Crisis on FDI Inflows in India and Bangladesh

The investment climate in India and Bangladesh has undoubtedly become friendlier and investing in these countries has been an attractive proposition today than in earlier years. According to A.T. Kearney's FDI Confidence Index (2014) India ranks 7th on the basis of FDI inflows in the world while Bangladesh ranks 3rdamong SAARC countries. The present analysis attempts to show that though the global financial crisis (2008) had adversely impacted the growth in GDP and employment opportunities and FDI flows throughout the world, India and Bangladesh both had shown considerable resilience to the global economic crisis by maintaining a high growth rate during this period in the world. It highlights the changes the policy regimes in the two countries. It also tries to examine empirically, using secondary time series data, the amount of FDI inflows, component-wise and sector-wise break-up in FDI inflows in both countries during the pre and post-crisis era, based on Exogenous Structural Break Model. The empirical analysis clearly reveals both FDI and FDI-GDP ratio exhibits stationary trend in India while they are difference stationary in case of Bangladesh. It also focuses on the crisis management policies in the two nations for smooth flow of FDI in the long run.