British Midland, a UK government-funded organisation, dedicated to attracting international businesses to the region comprising East Midlands and West Midlands, is eyeing around 40 investors from India across various sectors in the next three years.
East Midlands Development Agency’s Director David Wallace said,”We are looking at investors especially in sectors such as automotive, aero-space, transport technology and IT among others,” .
It is more advisable to invest in Midland rather than in London as property prices are lesser by 50 % and labour costs are lesser by 25 % than London, he said.
Moreover, the manufacturing base has all international operations besides availability of skill-sets, he said.
Commenting on China, he said that significant investments were not expected from the country in the region in the next three to four years, although it is considered as an important destination. “Our focus on China has been more on trade and business than on investment into our region,” he said.
Some important Indian companies that have invested in the British Midlands are Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Brunton Shaw UK Limited among others, he said.
“Signs of a slight slowdown in decision-making in investments will be witnessed in the coming years due to the US recession and credit crunch,” he said.
It would be a global phenomenon as investors would be careful about investing, he added.
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Indians have emerged as the largest property buyers in the UK thereby contributing to economic development of the country, as per the data compiled by real estate firms and British Government research. Indian companies in UK has pushed corporate activity to a great extent and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) move to allow investments abroad to the scale of $100,000 are some major factors listed by broking firms.In 2005-06, India emerged as the third largest investor after the US and Japan. The country moved ahead to 2nd position with the $7.6 billion takeover of Corus Steel by the Tatas in October 2006.Real estate projects from India increased to 76 per cent from mere 11 per cent thereby making India the UK’s third largest investor.Today, the UK houses more than 400 Indian companies. Of this, around 23 per cent have begun their UK operations in 2006. Officials estimated that India’s business operations in the UK are now worth nearly $35 billion.Parking money in London real estate is serving as a status statement for most successful Indian entrepreneurs. Rich Indians prefer to invest in exclusive central London areas since its financial climate is more stable than India.For more view- realtydigest.blogspot.com
The number of major global investors in the GCC property market is expected to more than double this year, according to research by Jones Lang LaSalle, a property consultancy.
Until this year, few of the “global 100″ property investors had ventured into the Gulf, despite a decade of strong growth in several countries.
The arrival of the biggest names in the business – such as American International Group (AIG), the American insurance group, and Singapore,s Capita Land, which signed a joint venture deal with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company last year – is a sign that global investors are gaining confidence in the legal and regulatory framework in the region.