- India: the New Delhi Government has just adopted several measures aimed at increasing foreign investments in its economy. It has thus announced the total opening of several industrial and services sectors, and an increase of the ceilings imposed on other sectors for foreign investments. Airports, hotels, tourism, home delivery services, the pharmaceutical industry (with a few exceptions), real estate (limited, however, to the development of new cities) and urban transport are now open 100% to capital, the share so far authorized for foreign capital having been between 51% and 74%. For its part, the banking sector will be open to the tune of 49% against the previous 20% or 40% for expatriate Indians. The ceiling, previously set at 49% for Internet sites, "radio pagers" ad other telecommunications equipment has, moreover, been increased to 74% but nevertheless remains subject to authorization from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). India has, indeed, planned to set up an "automatic road", a lightened procedure which will dispense foreign investors from having to secure FIPB approval for many sectors. Finally, the defence sector is, for the first time, open to the private sector, to the tune of 100% for national companies and 26% for foreign capital. All these measures are aimed at enabling the government to reach an ambitious objective, or $10 bn in foreign investments a year, intended, notably, to finance infrastructures. Last year, this was a mere $2.6 bn, or twenty times less than China. - France: foreign investors increased their direct investments in France seven fold in the first quarter of 2001 compared to the same period in 2000, at FF 36.1 bn. This amount is nevertheless lower that French investments abroad, or FF 164 bn.