Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India has increased by 16 percent year-on-year to USD 27.1 billion during April-August this year, the Commerce and Industry Ministry said on Tuesday.

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During April-August last year, India had received FDI worth USD 23.35 billion.

The ministry said that the total FDI, which includes reinvested earnings, grew by 13 percent to USD 35.73 billion.

"It is the highest ever for the first five months of a financial year and 13 per cent higher as compared to the first five months of 2019-20 (USD 31.60 billion)," it added.

It also stated that the total FDI inflow grew by 55 percent from USD 231.37 billion in 2008-14 to USD 358.29 billion in 2014-20.

"FDI is a major driver of economic growth and an important source of non-debt finance for the economic development of India. The government has endeavoured to put in place an enabling and investor-friendly FDI policy. The intent all this while has been to make the FDI policy more investor-friendly and remove the policy bottlenecks that have been hindering the investment inflows into the country," it said.

It said that the steps taken in this direction during the last six years had borne fruit as is evident from the ever-increasing volumes of FDI inflows being received into the country.

"Measures taken by the government on the fronts of FDI policy reforms, investment facilitation and ease of doing business have resulted in increased FDI inflows into the country. The following trends in India's FDI are an endorsement of its status as a preferred investment destination amongst global investors," the ministry said.