(Filed Under Financial and General Interest News). After initially suspending a plan that would allow foreign retailers to own any more than 51 percent of their stores, India’s government ratified a decision to allow international companies full ownership of stores selling a single brand.

The decision allows big-name single-brand companies like IKEA and Starbucks to enter and operate in India’s $400 billion marketplace without the aid of an in-country partner. The legislation does not allow multibrand retailers such as Walmart into the country, but the removal of the limit on foreign investment in single-brand operations has many hoping that similar restrictions will be lifted for multibrand retailers.

With the news, shares of Indian retail companies surged in a range of 2 and 10 percent.

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Published 01-18-2012 by Katherine Rautenberg