India will become a bigger economy than Japan and the third biggest behind China and the United States in the next three decades, Lord Swraj Paul, NRI industrialist and British Ambassador for Overseas Business has said. Addressing a distinguished gathering at the Executive Development Centre for UBS AG in Wolfsberg, Switzerland on Monday night, Lord Paul referred to the rapid strides made by China and India and said "the long-term prospects for India, while from a lower starting point, are, if anything better. Its fifty-year growth rate is put at just above five per cent." Speaking on 'Manufacturing and Globalisation' Lord Paul who is the co-chairman of the India-UK round table, said "India will not overtake the United States over this period but will become a bigger economy than Japan and thus the third biggest behind China and the United States, in the space of thirty years."

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 30, 2004

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The growth of the Indian job market seems to be trail blazing. If the latest International Data Corp (IDC) figures are anything to go by, the market for information technology by 2005 will be worth more than double of $11.5 billion, making it the second fastest growing international tech market. A huge demand for IT workers apart, placement agencies confirm that the insurance sector too is teeming with job opportunities this year. Industry estimates say that, this year, the job market rise could be as sharply as 50 per cent. The IT and software industries have roared back from recession and are likely to create more than one lakh new jobs as compared to 75,000 jobs they did in 2003. In the BPO sector, the number of new jobs in 2004 is likely to be more than 1.5 lakh. The IT and ITeS sectors employ 6.5 lakh people and ITeS is doubling its manpower every year. "The IT sector still has an immense scope in the job market and is witnessing the second wave, which is marked by exclusive mandates and not-so-high salary levels." The latest trend in the market is the rising demand in the insurance sector, where at least 20,000 new jobs would be created in 2004,'' Nirupama VG, executive vice-president of TeamLease, a major manpower leasing company said. The insurance sector needs professionals mostly in the junior level to market their products. As far as the Indian insurance sector is concerned, there is a huge market that is yet to be captured. The industry needs graduates and management students and are paid around Rs 7,000 per month for a one-year contract.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 30, 2004

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Forget about the US dollar. Watch out for the euro! Believe it or not, the domestic currency has battered the euro much harder than the dollar in the first quarter of 2004. The rupee has appreciated by a whopping 6.36 per cent against the euro from Rs 57.30 level in January to Rs 53.65 in March this year, while it has gained about 3.29 per cent against the dollar in the same period. "The reason is the dollar's sudden appreciation against the euro. The world looks at the euro through the dollar and hence it has been impacted against the domestic currency," said a dealer at Global Trust Bank. Domestic exporters who switched to euro invoicing following the gradual depreciation of the dollar against the rupee in the past are the hardest hit now. "Exporters invoicing in euros are doubly hit. The euro has depreciated against the dollar and the dollar has gone down against the rupee. Currently, foreign institutional investors have pumped in $4,591.50 crore into the country's equity as well as debt markets. The inflow totalled $11,134 million in the first three months of 2004. FIIs on Friday bought equities worth $272 million.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, March 30, 2004

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As Ratan Tata lit the ceremonial lamp to mark the acquisition of Daewoo Commercial Vehicles (DWCV) at a ceremony in the Korean town of Gunsan, Tata Motors' $102m takeover became the largest Indian acquisition in Korea . The 265bn won ($250m) DWCV clocked an operating profit of 16.5bn won and a net profit of 6.6bn won ($6m) in the year ended December '03. It intends on using a three-pronged strategy in its new avatar, to improve capacity utilisation and grab a greater market share. Ravi Kant, executive director, commercial vehicles, Tata Motors, said the launch of upgraded products in the pipeline, increased international sales through the Tata network and the introduction of new products in the medium term, will collectively improve DWCV's market share in Korea and overseas. The company enjoys a 25% share of the heavy truck market in Korea. The new product development and capital expenditure will primarily be financed by DWCV itself.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 30, 2004

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Almonds may no longer be a hard nut to crack. Little wonder that the US government is making no bones about how important India is as an agro-commodity exports destination, and working constantly at clinching duty cuts. In '03-04 (August-February), India dethroned Japan as the top importer of Californian almonds to the tune of Rs 745 crore. According to the DGFT, nuts including almonds, pistachios and cashew, raisins and fresh apples accounted for a whopping Rs 1,436.1 crore in imports up to December '03 in the fruits and vegetables category. Out of a total of Rs 1,494.4 crore, around Rs 60 crore went into imports of other fresh fruits and vegetables. In the corresponding period up to December '02, imports of nuts totalled Rs 1,242.7 crore, out of Rs 1,347.1 crore attributed to fruit and vegetable imports. This means a growth of 15.6% in import of nuts over just one year, though the overall growth in imports of fruits and vegetables - of which India is among the top producers in the world - also registered a significant rise of 10.9%. Meanwhile, China, which has been identified by the board as the only other region with huge growth potential in Asia at par with India , is posing stiff problems. Traditionally, Spain, Germany and Japan were the top troika for almond exports from the US, with India following at fourth position. However, with an impressive 10% growth in consumption over one year, the projection by US agri business is that the upward trend in Indian consumption will continue for the rest of their fiscal year. This is one area where we have definitely left China far behind, though the latter has been identified as a key area of potential growth for almond exports in Asia, neck and neck with India.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 29, 2004

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Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lupin, has forayed into the US paediatric segment by inking an agreement with Allergan Inc to promote "Zymar" in that country. "Zymar" was approved by the US Food & Drug Administration in March 2003 as the first fourth generation olphthalmic fluoroquinolone to enter the market, the company said in a release here on Monday. Zymar is already the number one prescribed ophthalmic fluoroquinolone among eye care professionals in the US. As per the agreement, the product, which is indicated for the treatment of bacterial conjunctivitis caused by susceptible strains of bacteria, will be promoted by paediatric sales force of Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc to high volume paediatric prescribers.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 29, 2004

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Indian economy is finally growing to its potential. According to the latest estimates of the Central Statistical Organisation, gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 8.1% in 2003-04 - more than double the growth rate achieved last year. What is more significant is that our economists this time believe that the economy can maintain the high growth trend - macro fundamentals are at their best, stock market is booming and government finances are under control. The latest survey of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) carried out during July-December 2002 on the condition of urban slums, in fact, has revealed the appalling picture of living conditions in India 's slums. No wonder. For, the definition of slum itself is an indication of poor living conditions. The survey has located 52,000 slums in the urban areas of the country and about eight million households live in these slums. They accounted for 14% of the total urban households in the country. The number of slums were highest in Maharashtra - 32%. West Bengal was second with 16% followed by Andhra Pradesh with 15%.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 29, 2004

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India's third-biggest passenger carmaker Tata Motors on Monday evinced interest in assembling cars in Korea and said it was in talks with Korean automakers to forge alliances. "If the market is large enough to do it, that is what we want to do", group Chairman Ratan Tata said after taking over Daewoo's commercial vehicles operations here. This would be the group's first such venture outside India if it went through. The Tata group company manufactures cars at its Pune plant and has tie-up with UK-based automaker MG Rover to sell compact car 'Indica' in Britain and Europe. Tata, however, declined to give details about the prospective partners. Queried whether today's Korean foray was a precursor to entry into China, Tata said he had no specific plans for China at this stage but preliminary talks had been held in that country. Analysts said the Daewoo takeover would give a fillip to Tata Motors China strategy. Tata Motors has a 15 per cent market share in the Indian car market and is the third largest producer after Maruti and Hyundai. It sold 104,155 cars last year recording a 17.5 per cent rise.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 29, 2004

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Move over business process outsourcing (BPO), the tech industry has got a new growth engine - remote infrastructure management services (IMS). India is fast emerging as one of the hottest destinations in the $100 billion market for remote IMS, which accounts for almost 20 per cent of the global IT services pie. Indian vendors such as HCL, Wipro, Infosys and TCS have bagged a number of mega IMS deals in the last three quarters and global bigwigs including IBM , HP and EDS have wasted no time in capitalising on this new wave of offshoring. Analysts expect IMS to overtake BPO in terms of revenue in a couple of years, contributing 10-20 per cent to the revenues of tech majors. And it's a big boost to the bottomline with net value addition per person being 10-15 times the amount it is for BPOs. HCL and Wipro clearly lead the pack here. "For several years, Indian banks have continuously expanded their service portfolio, adding offerings such as package implementation and BPO; IMS is the next step," says Bhupinder Ahuja of Deutsche Bank in his latest report. The old concept of outsourcing an entire infrastructure, with an IBM or EDS taking over and managing these assets, is fast giving way to organisations located anywhere in the world, discreetly tapping into some part of an individual business and monitoring it remotely.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 29, 2004

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At a time when the West is rallying against outsourcing to Indian companies, telecom major Bharti Tele-Ventures has done just the opposite. Bharti has awarded a 10-year IT management deal worth $700-750m to IBM. Pegged as one of the largest deals in the domestic IT market, the figure for the first five years is estimated to be in the range of $250-275m, and for the 10-year period, the total deal is likely to be in the range of $700-750m, according to terms agreed upon between Bharti and IBM. In addition, Bharti would transfer about 200 employees to IBM. The deal is linked to the percentage of revenue generated by Bharti Televentures and involves Bharti outsourcing its hardware, software and IT service requirements to IBM. This includes IT applications, including billing, customer relations management and data warehousing. IBM will also consolidate Bharti's data centres, IT help desks and enhance its disaster recovery capabilities. IBM India has also identified Bharti Televentures as a preferred supplier of telecom services like bandwidth, satellite connectivity, last mile wireless and wireline access and national and international long-distance communication solutions. IBM will deploy an open standard-based framework, a service provider delivery environment (SPDE), which will help Bharti adapt to rapid changes in technology.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 27, 2004

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Chinese, British and Pakistani manufacturers of medical equipment are keenly eyeing India not only as a potential market but also for setting up joint ventures. "With Western markets quite saturated for medical equipment, there is substantial interest in India and China as potential markets," managing director of Britain-based based medical equipment manufacturer Kinex Log, Dina MacDonald told IANS. "In turn, leading Chinese companies are eagerly looking at India for collaboration, network and professional exchanges," she added. To tap this potential, the company is organising a three-day medical health expo Medicare India 2004 in New Delhi on April 6-8 with the largest participation coming from Chinese companies followed by Belgian and British firms. As India positions itself as a medical tourism destination, there is interest among European and Chinese firms to participate in the entire healthcare spectrum, said MacDonald. "Since India is such a massive market offering many encouraging investment opportunities, some firms are looking to appoint distributors for their products, while some are looking for long-term joint ventures, collaborations and tie ups with local firms. Some are even considering the possibility of setting up manufacturing and distribution plants in India," said Dai. "India is a big market for healthcare products. Even though no business is being done presently, we are positive about the market response," added Safder. "India certainly is on the road to becoming one of the world's largest and most preferred medical tourism destinations - like Singapore is," Safder said.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, March 27, 2004

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Dutch company Philips, Europe's largest consumer electronics maker, told shareholders that it would keep moving jobs to Asia and critics of this policy were behind the times. "Many people in this part of the world still seem unable to grasp the full implications of the dramatic rise of dynamic growth economies in Asia, such as China and India," Philips Electronics Chief Executive Gerard Kleisterlee said. Philips employs more than 47,000 staff in the Asia Pacific region, or 29 per cent of the total number of employees, up from 26 per cent two years ago. Kleisterlee said China and India were just the latest in a string of nations that had developed an export-driven industrial base since 1950. He said productivity per dollar labour cost was five times higher in China than in Germany and three times higher in India than in Germany.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 26, 2004

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It's a $9 billion market where India enjoys top-of-the-mind recall. Despite all the anti-outsourcing noise in the US, India is far and away the top outsourcing destination for Motown. According to an online survey of American automotive executives conducted by AT Kearney, India is right on top of the auto-outsourcing heap with 24% of the respondents giving it the thumbs up. Bigger automotive markets like China and Mexico lag behind at 15% and 13% respectively while auto hubs like Brazil, Thailand and the Philippines corner just 10%, 2% and 3% of the votes. If that sounds like good news there's more. The biggest share of the auto outsource pie comes from the engineering and technical services segment which commanded 39% of the votes. In value terms it works out to a $2 billion market in North America alone. That's great news for CAD/CAM and engineering service companies spanning IT names like Infosys and Satyam and automotive biggies like Tata Technology and M&M.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 25, 2004

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First it was the IT sector. Closely followed by the pharma and ITeS sector. And now it's the turn of the chemical fibre industry. India is poised to emerge as the global hub for synthetic fibre, particularly polyester - slowly and steadily. This, thanks to the country's prowess in the domain of product innovation and cost competitiveness. Have a quick look at the global shift in polyester production centre. Historically, polyester production emerged in the developed regions of North America and Western Europe. Slowly it shifted to Japan, Korea and Taiwan. And now, it has moved to India and China. "Polyester manufacturing has become uncompetitive in high cost economy of the developed countries. India's advantage in this field are lower conversion cost across the supply chain, lower capital cost, massive growth in downstream capacities and decline of downstream textile manufacturing in USA and Western Europe," said Mr Nikhil R Meswani, executive director, Reliance Industries Limited. It is not only manufacturing, but the trend has even swept in the domain of research and development of fibres. Take the case of Reliance. The company has recently inaugurated a state-of-the-art R&D center in the country. The center is proposed to do research on processes to products in the entire cross section of polyester industry.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.com March 25, 2004

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With liberalisation, removal of exim controls and a buoyant economy, the air cargo business from India is on cloud nine, and set to grow by 10%. All parameters point to a favourable future, due to the heightened capabilities of Indian manufacturers to compete with others and an improvement in the quality and delivery schedules. "An improvement in business ethics is also encouraging an increasing number of airlines to operate out of India," said Sam Katgara, president, Air Cargo Agents Association of India (ACAAI). Exim volumes are likely to rise by 12-15% which, according to ACAAI, is significant, though India's share in the world trade is minuscule.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 25, 2004

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Ranbaxy announced it had achieved a major milestone, crossing the $1 billion mark in global sales, almost 10 months ahead of the company's target date of end 2004 for this. The recent acquisition of RPG Aventis in France has helped Ranbaxy to achieve the $1 billion mark much ahead of its target date. While Ranbaxy will be the first home-grown pharma company to cross the billion-dollar sales mark, it would now join the ranks of a select few Indian corporates across sectors such as oil and gas, petroleum refinery and marketing, automobiles, cement, engineering, metals, telecom and IT which have sales in excess of $1 billion. A company statement said the credit for this successful achievement truly belongs to the efforts of the over 9,000-strong Ranbaxy family. Ranbaxy unveiled its grand vision in 1993 to become a $1 billion company by 2004. Ranbaxy, which has operational presence in 43 countries currently, ended year 2003 with a total revenue of $969 million. Revenues from its international operations accounts for 76% of the company's total sales revenues. Of this, revenues from the US and Europe together account for 52%. The US market, with a total sales revenue of $411 is the largest revenue earner for Ranbaxy.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.com, March 25, 2004

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The backlash against outsourcing notwithstanding, the US automotive industry has unanimously voted India as the most preferred destination for offshoring engineering and technical jobs. And it's this support from global majors that may help Indian auto component exports cruise past the $1 billion mark by the end of 2003-04. A recent survey, conducted by consultancy firm ATKearney, revealed that leading automobile and component manufacturers from the US preferred offshoring jobs to India over China, Mexico and Brazil. India was voted as the top offshoring destination by 24% of the voters, followed by China at 15%, Mexico 13% and Brazil 10%. " India was the chosen country with a huge margin. Most firms chose it for its cost competitiveness and good quality. What was most surprising was automotive firms using India more for engineering and technical services," says ATKearney principal Nagi Palle. According to Automotive Component Manufacturers' Association (Acma) officials, this huge support from western firms will help the industry post an export turnover of $1 billion this fiscal. Companies considering outsourcing from India include Volvo, General Motors, Ford, Fiat, Toyota, Delphi, Navistar, Cummins and Caterpillar.

Courtesy: The Times of India, March 25, 2004

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Exports of gems and jewellery grew by over 22 per cent during the first eleven months (April-February) of 2003-04 to Rs 46,472 crore from Rs 37,973 in the same period previous fiscal. In dollar terms, exports increased by 28 per cent to 10,116 million dollar as against 7,856 million dollar in the previous year, according to Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council. Exports have already surpassed the target of $9,992 million set by Commerce Ministry except for coloured gemstones. The maximum increase in exports was in the category of rough diamonds and gold jewellery, a Council release said.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 24, 2004

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General Motors Corp. is planning to ship $48 million worth of white-collar work abroad this year as part of a broad cost-savings program, officials confirmed Tuesday. The work includes tasks such as computer-aided planning of future factory layouts and will be sent to Canada and India, according to GM spokesman Dan Flores who confirmed the details of a leaked report. Like most automakers competing in the cutthroat US auto market, GM has turned to cost-cutting and productivity improvements to protect paper-thin profit margins that have been eroded by the industry's incentives war.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 24, 0004

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The U.K-based application provider for hospitals and healthcare companies, iSOFT Group plc., will recruit about 650 software and medical professionals in the next 3-4 months for its Chennai centre. The move to increase the headcount comes in the wake of iSOFT landing three contracts from the National Health Services of Britain. The Chief Executive Officer of the India operations of iSOFT Group plc., Ravan Boddu, told The Hindu that the company would be investing $100 million in its India operations over the next three years in a phased manner. The funds would be used to increase the staff strength, expand the infrastructure and deploy new technology in the Chennai centre. iSOFT employs more than 2,200 people globally, including 300 professionals in Chennai. For the year ended April 30, 2003, its worldwide turnover was over 90 million pound sterling.

Courtesy: The Hindu, March 24, 2004

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As India's companies restructure their balance sheets and start thinking of themselves as global players, JP Morgan is expanding its operations there as IPO and privatisation activity heats up. "Here's a country that will show massive growth," co-head of investment banking in Asia Pacific, Sean Wallace told Reuters in an interview. Incomes in India are rising as its middle class of more than 300 million swells, and a privatisation program is meeting with success. The country's economy is Asia's third largest and was forecast to have grown more than eight per cent in the year ending March 2004. China's booming economy and accompanying $23 billion in expected overseas stock listings has grabbed world headlines as investors clamor for a piece of its growth. But India is becoming a key focus for banks such as JP Morgan, which has 23 offices in 15 Asian countries. India has become attractive due to the emergence of companies formerly viewed as troubled, particularly in the basic manufacturing sector, the bankers said.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, March 24, 2004

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Buoyed by the success of Tata's compact car Indica in the United Kingdom and Europe, British automaker MG Rover is looking at marketing other vehicles from the Tata Motors stable and more such tie-ups. "Three thousand units of the vehicle have been registered in the UK and Europe so far. The response has been fairly encouraging for us. We are open to market other Tata vehicles and similar agreements," MG Rover head (product development) Michael J Booth said. MG Rover has also inked a deal with Tata Motors for the supply for components to service the car in the British and European markets. Tata Motors entered into an agreement with MG Rover to initially sell one lakh units of Indica in the UK and six European countries in the avatar of City Rover. At present, MG Rover is in the process of launching the vehicle in more European countries. "We are taking the car to more European countries but production is a constraint now," he said adding the initial one lakh units target could be increased once the supply constraints got removed. Meanwhile, tractor maker Sonalika has entered into technical alliances with British automaker MG Rover and engine manufacturer Powertrain to produce SUVs and diesel engine components respectively with an initial investment of Rs 200 crore at an upcoming greenfield project. The company would set up a facility in Himachal Pradesh to make SUVs to be sourced by Powertrain to manufacture common rail direct injection engines in the UK.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, March 24, 2004

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The new-found confidence of Indian companies in meeting the challenges of globalisation and the rising demand for consumer credit augur well for the banking sector, according to K.V. Kamath, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank Limited. Addressing a function here today to mark the 10th Anniversary Celebrations of The Hindu Business Line, he said that along with the steady growth in consumer credit disbursement, which included housing loans, there was a big revival in credit offtake by corporates. "What we see now is a completely different story compared to a couple of years ago," he said, pointing out that Indian companies were investing on building new capacities and improving productivity and quality. Apart from deploying "organic capital" [internal accruals] more and more companies were restructuring their debt portfolio by retiring high cost loans. Stating that a new-found confidence was visible among the corporates in the last quarter, Mr. Kamath said the companies were planning for huge investments. Credit demand for about Rs. 100,000 crores had suddenly surfaced and "this is just the tip of the iceberg." All this showed that "India shining" was a reality. Hailing the economic reforms process whose soul is the market economy, he said the country was able to match the opening up by building regulatory institutions with the sole objective of protecting the market mechanism.

Courtesy: The Hindu, March 24, 2004

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After the stock markets, it was the turn of the rupee to be influenced by foreign funds flowing into recently concluded public offerings by government. On Tuesday, rupee breached the 45-level to near 44-month closing high against dollar as foreign funds bought the Indian currency ahead of payment for public offers for which they have applied. A couple of weeks ago, the same series of government divestment offerings had kept equity market buoyant on expectations of strong FII inflow. On Tuesday, rupee gained 21 paise against dollar to close at 44.87 as compared to Monday's close of 45.09. The day's closing was very near rupee's July 28, 2000, close of 44.85 to a dollar. Buying of dollars by state-run banks failed to tame the rise of Indian currency, dealers said.

Courtesy: The Times of India, March 24, 2004

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Bharat Heavy Electricals (Bhel) has exported a 150 mw gas turbine generator to Libya for an upcoming power project. Bhel is setting up the gas-based power station in Libya on a turnkey basis. The generator has been exported against an order of four such generators - the single largest overseas order received by any capital goods manufacturing company in India.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, March 23, 2004

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Nextlinks, a provider of software solutions for global trade, plans to expand its operations in India. The company plans to set up a software centre to provide tailored solutions to large logistics players and also set up a BPO operation to undertake tariff-related research for its global customer base. Currently, Nextlinks has invested over $10 million in its Indian operations, including a software facility where over 100 people are working on a variety of product lines. Rajeev Uppal, chief executive officer, Nextlinks told The Economic Times that the company wanted to build on its presence in the country on both the software front and also take advantage of Indian BPO capabilities. Referring to the new software division, Uppal said logistics companies were increasingly demanding custom-made software applications from providers such as Nextlinks.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, March 23, 2004

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Exports from India to the Asean (Association of South-East Asian Nations) could rise to the level of $30 billion by 2007 by focussing on the commodity groups that are of maximum importance to the members of the regional group. According to a paper by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), on 'Enhancing India-Asean Trade', the potential sectors for investment and trade between India and Asean are drugs and pharmaceuticals, healthcare, engineering goods, auto components, leather, gems and jewellery, processed food items, textiles and apparel, and plastics. The services sector is another area with great potential. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for Indo-Asean trade for the period 1991-2001 has been a robust 11.1 per cent, which is more than the CAGR recorded by India's total volume of trade during the same period. The paper said the CAGR calculated for the year 2001 to 2003, at 17.62 per cent, indicates a promising increase that needs to be further accelerated. Asean-India trade in 2002-03 was about $9.78 billion, over four times the 1993-94 trade figure of $2.5 billion. India's exports to Asean were worth $4.62 billion, while imports came to about $5.15 billion during this period, with the balance of trade in favour of Asean, the CII Paper said.

Courtesy: The Statesman, March 22, 2004

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A study by the international consultancy firm, McKinsey, on the prospects for textile exports following the total removal of quota restrictions by the end of the year has shown that India could be the second biggest winner after China, even while Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Vietnam may be able to just about maintain their current export levels and countries like Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia and Thailand may even witness decline in their exports. According to a report on the study released here recently, India could hope to record a growth rate of about 8 per cent, which could be more than doubled to even as much as 18 per cent provided the Government and the industry took some immediate corrective measures. If key reforms were introduced in areas such as product market and labour market, India, it says, should be able to capture 5 per cent share of the world market for apparel exports by 2008 and yield an export value of between $25 billion and $30 billion by 2013, even if, for some reason, India cannot take any share from China and compete with free trade zone.

Courtesy: The Hindu, March 21, 2004

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With the global pharma industry in a flux, Indian pharma firms are expected to double their market share in percentage terms and quadruple itself in terms of revenues by 2008. Since the big pharma companies are facing anaemic R&D pipelines, looming patent expiries, an unprecedented number of patent challenges and structural risk in the generic industry, they have to partner Indian companies, albeit for different reasons. According to recent reports, Indian pharma companies' earnings are expected to grow 21 per cent, driven by core business, with a sustainable upside possible from hitherto undiscovered pipelines and patent challenges. As per the data available, Indian Pharma Inc. has one-third of all bulk active filings and one-third of all abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) filings, with pipelines of approved 108 ANDAs, 52 Para 4s and 25 first-to-file. In fact, Indian companies have together covered 90 per cent of the potential generics pipelines (expiring products over the next five years). As per conservative estimates, the size of the first -to-files for the Indian companies is about $30-$35 billion. Analysts believe that Indian companies will deliver superior growth over the next 2-3 years. Experts believe that acquisitions have been an integral part of the growth strategy for Indian pharma companies. Ranbaxy has made about nine international acquisitions in the past few years to establish its presence in the global market, while Dr Reddy's acquired BMS Labs in the UK. With an increasing balance sheet strength and cash flow generation, experts believe that acquisitions will continue in the near future.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, March 21, 2004

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