June 16, 2014

INDIA: Open for Business

If you missed investing in China before it became the 2nd largest economy in the world after the US, now is your second chance to make big size gains before India takes off. Take a look at India....


From Barrons

INDIA: Open for Business
India's likely new prime minister, Narendra Modi, is controversial but also the nation's best shot at an economic turnaround.

By JONATHAN R. LAING
May 3, 2014

In 2008, Narendra Modi sent a text message to Indian mogul Ratan Tata asking him to abandon plans to build his new Nano mini-car at a site in West Bengal, where the project was stymied by red tape and farmer riots. Modi proposed that Tata move the plant construction to Gujarat, the Indian state where Modi was chief minister. Tata agreed, and the first part of his complex was up and operating in Gujarat in less than two years, an extraordinary feat in India.

This and many similar business-friendly initiatives helped Modi turn Gujarat into a fast-growing industrial powerhouse during his 13 years at the helm, following China's model of heavy infrastructure spending on roads, ports, and electric-power generation that, along with generous subsidies, has attracted many modern plants -- and attention. "So many things work properly in Gujarat that it hardly feels like India," noted a newsweekly a few years ago.

The hope is that Modi, 63, can put his pluck and powers of persuasion to work for all of India as its new prime minister. He and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, are the odds-on favorites to win the national election, which will wind up in the second week of May. Their victory would end 10 years of increasingly feckless rule by the Gandhi family-led Congress Party, which has failed to realize India's vast economic potential. Modi's main opponent for prime minister is Rahul Gandhi.

Back in 2006-08, India was mentioned in the same breath as China as one of the globe's most exciting emerging-market growth stories. The gross domestic products of both countries were growing at or near double-digit rates. It was the heyday of the BRIC conceit, that magical lineup of Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- nations destined for economic greatness by dint of their immense resources and increasing embrace of free-market principles.

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