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Nevada Based Company Plans Major Real Estate Investment in India
Indo-Asian News Service
September 29, 2005
Mumbai: A US-based infrastructure company on Thursday unveiled plans
to invest $1 billion in Indian real estate in what is being billed
as the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in the newly liberalised
sector.
Royal Indian Raj International Corporation (RIRIC), a Nevada-based
company promoted by people of Indian origin, is firming up plans to
build integrated townships and planned cities in the country.
The company has entered into a strategic partnership with New York-based
real estate investment banking firm The Greenwich Group International
to finance the development of multiple private cities in India.
"We have already been working on our inaugural residential project
on a 17-acre plot on the outskirts of Bangalore," said RIRIC CEO Manoj
C Benjamin.
"With the Indian real estate sector in transition and recent landmark
legislation allowing FDI into it, the opportunity for participation
in this formerly closed market is heightening," Benjamin said.
RIRIC said it aimed to take advantage of India's immense housing shortage
by developing large-scale commercial and residential townships in
four megapolises - Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi.
The company claimed its plans for the next 10 years in India would
provide direct employment to nearly 10,000 people and indirect employment
to another 40,000.
"We have got into a contract to acquire nearly 5,000 acres of land
near Mumbai, 3,000 acres near Delhi, 5,600 acres near Bangalore and
another 5,000 acres near Kolkata," Benjamin claimed.
He, however, said the final settlement of these deals depended on
several factors - chiefly approvals from state governments.
Benjamin said Mumbai alone would need anywhere between 180,000 and
200,000 additional residential units in the next 10 years. India is
expected to see an annual shortfall of 20 million housing units till
2011.
The $50 billion Indian real estate market is booming and expected
to grow at 25 per cent annually.
The boom owing to the consumption powered growth of the country's
economy has seen investors planning nearly 250 new shopping malls
by 2008, as against just three that existed till 2002.
The central government adopted a regulation in February allowing foreigners
to bid for Indian construction projects with local partners and also
reducing their minimum land-holding limit from 100 acres to 25 acres.
Enthused by the liberalised investment guidelines, a slew of foreign
builders are rushing to launch projects in Asia's third largest economy.
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