20080725

India- Quick View for Business Opportunities



Infrastructure

The infrastructure sector in India, traditionally reserved for the government, is progressively being opened up for private sector participation.
Ports - The country has a 7500 km long coastline dotted with numerous major and minor ports.
Roads - India has the second largest road network in the world, spanning 3.3 million kilometres.
Airports - India has 122 airports. The total passenger traffic handled by these airports are over 40 million, while the cargo traffic handled was around 854,000 tonnes.
Power - The all India installed capacity of electric power generating stations under utilities was 104917 MW as on March 2002 consisting of 26261 MW hydro, 74428 MW thermal, 2720 MW nuclear and 1507 MW wind.

Competitive Advantages Offered by India
Stable democratic governance throughout 55 years of independence.
Large market of a middle class of 300-350 million people with increasing purchasing power as reflected by a sustained growth in sales of consumer durables in recent years.
Access to regional international markets through membership of regional cooperation frameworks such as SAARC, Indian Ocean Rim countries (IOC-ARC), and dialogue partnerships with EU and ASEAN. India also have Memoranda of Understanding/Cooperation partnerships with most African and Latin American regional groupings.
Foreign investment is welcome in almost all sectors barring those of strategic concern like atomic energy, railways and sensitive defense production.
Thrust on technology, innovation and knowledge based industries and services.
Well developed R&D infrastructure and technical and marketing services.
Large resources of untapped natural wealth.
Promising future in the burgeoning information technology and biotechnology industries.
Developed banking system, commercial banking network of over 63,000 branches, supported by a number of international banks, insurance and financial institutions.
Vibrant capital market comprising 23 stock exchanges with over 9,000 listed companies.
Developing as one of the largest cost-competitive technical workforce nation.
Conducive foreign investment environment that provides freedom of entry and exit, investment, location, choice of technology, import and export.
Acceleration of the privatization process and restructuring of public enterprises.
Current account convertibility, capital account convertibility for foreign investors and progressive implementation for Indian residents.
Established, independent judiciary with a hierarchy of courts and the existence of several arbitration mechanisms outside the courts.
Special investment and tax incentives given for exports and certain sectors such as power, electronics, telecom, software, oil & gas and research and development activities.
Legal protection for Intellectual Property Rights.
Import regime in conformity with WTO commitments – removal of remaining quantitative restrictions on imports of goods into India barring certain items on grounds of national security, defense and health.



Special Economic Zones(SEZ)
From April 2000 Special Economic Zones(SEZ) were set up in India with a view to provide an internationally competitive and hassle free environment for exports. Business units may be set up in SEZ for manufacture of goods and rendering of services. All the import/export operations of the SEZ units will be on self-certification basis. The policy provides for setting up of SEZ's in the public, private, joint sector or by State Governments. In simple terms the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) provide virtual offshore operation facilities and advantages of a free trade area. A number of the earlier Export Processing Zones(EPZ) located at Kandla and Surat (Gujarat), Cochin (Kerala), Santa Cruz (Mumbai - Maharashtra), Falta (West Bengal), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Visakhapatnam (Andhra Prad esh) and Noida (Uttar Pradesh) were converted into Special Economic Zones. For details please access http://sezindia.nic.in/


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