In his address to the French businessmen here, Vajpayee said his government would give utmost importance to ensuring that approved projects are implemented in time and do not get delayed for want of any government action. ``This is of utmost importance to me and my government,'' Vajpayee said.

Vajpayee's assurance has to be seen in the context of the oft-repeated criticism by foreign investors, including French businessmen, that the hassle factor and implementation delays were preventing larger investments.

Even though India remains to a great extent unaffected in a turbulent financial world, foreign investors hint at lack of political stability as the other important factor coming in the way of India becoming a prime destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) flows.

The Prime Ministeroutlined the areas in which French investments have come and steps taken by his government to speed up industrial development. Vajpayee also detailed steps to lure more foreign resources into infrastructural areas, such as ports, roads, power as well as information technology.

Vajpayee said India's investment needs for infrastructure in the next ten years exceed $ 400 billion dollars. ``Clearly resources of this magnitude cannot come from public expenditure and a large part will have to be sourced from the private sector, both domestic and foreign,'' Vajpayee said. He said the country's requirement in the areas of power, telecom, roads and ports and housing are huge.

``In the power sector alone, where capacity addition of around 8,000 to 10,000 MW per year was required, the government had taken a number of steps in the last few months,'' he said. A regulatory body had been established and similar bodies were in the process of being set up at the state level. Three pending projects had been givencounter-guarantees by the government just last month including the Indo-French joint venture Bhadravathi project. Necessary legislation had been enacted to enable the private sector to undertake transmission of power as a separate activity. A new policy for hydroelectric power had also been adopted to attract greater investment in this area, he said.

Vajpayee said foreign direct investment into India has been steadily increasing over the years reaching around $ 3.2 billion in 1997. For a country as large as India, however, this is still quite small. India could absorb an investment of more than ten billion dollars per year, he said.

The Prime Minister catalogued the merits of India as an investment destination. ``India has a huge growing market, with the world's largest middle class, abundant raw materials and highly trained and skilled people,'' he said.