Announced Is Not Arrived: India's Greenfield Lead, Weak Net FDI and the Global Subsidy Race

The Headline Counts Promises. The Economy Runs on Factories.

The Number UNCTAD's **Trade and Development Report

2026 says India captured 5.7% of global greenfield investment over 2020-25, ahead of Malaysia (4%), Indonesia (3.8%) and China (2.8%**). Greenfield investment means a foreign company building something new, such as a plant, a data centre or an office.

UNCTAD measures it by announced project value, not money that has actually arrived. That distinction matters, because the money that stays tells a different story. India's gross FDI inflows were about $70-71 billion a year in FY24 and FY25.

But net FDI, after repatriation of profits, disinvestment and Indian firms' investment abroad, fell below $10 billion in FY24, according to DPIIT and RBI data cited in the research.

Who Is on the Wrong Side of the Average Think of a

small auto-parts or electronics supplier in Gujarat that has added capacity hoping to supply a newly announced plant nearby. If the project is delayed or scaled down, the announcement has already shaped its investment decision, but the orders do not arrive.

The mechanism is simple. Announcements move expectations; only construction moves output, jobs and supplier orders. A high share of announcements with weak net retention means local economies are planning around capacity that may arrive late, smaller or not at all.

The Sharper Finding: Where Strategic Capital Goes

UNCTAD's bigger point is about sectors and geography.

• Strategic sectors rose from 16% of global greenfield investment in 2020 to 44% in 2025.
• In 2025 alone, AI infrastructure took 12.4% of a $845.7 billion total, semiconductors 8.1% and energy-transition technologies 7.8%.
• But strategic investment is concentrated in Europe (28.4%) and North America (28%). Developing Asia receives 26.5%, led by China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. UNCTAD warns that this gap is a growing challenge for the Global South, especially the least developed countries. India is one of a handful of developing economies inside the strategic-investment club. Most are outside it.

The Subsidy Race

Governments now compete for this capital with industrial policy. Between 2008 and 2021, China implemented 4,201 such policies, the United States 4,025 and India 1,416, the third highest. India's tools include PLI schemes worth ₹1.97 lakh crore across 14 sectors and the ₹76,000-crore India Semiconductor Mission.

The hard question is whether this race helps developing countries. India can afford to compete, but only at great cost per project: the Tata-PSMC chip plant at Dholera was approved at ₹91,000 crore. Most developing economies cannot match the fiscal firepower of the U.S. or China, which is part of why strategic capital clusters where it does.

Why This Matters for the Exam For

GS3, separate announced, gross and net investment. India's greenfield lead is real as a signal of intent. The test of industrial policy is how much of that intent turns into capacity that stays and whether the subsidy cost per job and per rupee of output is worth paying.