India Real Estate Monitor

DUBAI — An Indian hedge fund manager has described his country as being in a charming spot” of economic progress, telling investors in the hospitality and real estate industry that India will be able to carry on an yearly growth of ten percent for many years.
Investment level rose forty percent of the gross domestic product previous year — a jump from twenty five percent five years earlier — while employment is growing at around three percent yearly, said Surjit S Bhalla, chairman and managing director of Oxus Investments Pvt Ltd. He addressed on 3rd may the opening of the fourth Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC), where he also noted the increasing number of urban women joining the labour force — to eighteen percent in 2005 from fourteen percent in 2000.
“The hype about India is real,” said Bhalla, who manages Dh91.8 million ($25 million) in the Indian equity market through his company in New Delhi. “It is in a charming spot of growth, and this can last another decade or two.”
He told Arab investors at the conference that India lacks infrastructures, but is set to surpass China in terms of GDP growth by 2010. India had an annual growth of 5.6 % between 1980 and 2002, mainly due to its on the rise middle class.
The three-day event devoted its opening session to opportunities in India’s hospitality market, which shares many similarities with that in the Gulf region. Both markets are growing tremendously and calling for environment-friendly buildings and infrastructures. Homi S Aibara, a associate at a leading hospitality consultancy firm in India, Mahajan & Aibara, said that three hundred nine million square feet of commercial space is being planned or under construction all over Indian major cities to augment the existing one hundred seventy three million square feet.