As per the Quick Estimates of Industrial Production released by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO), industrial production in India registered a healthy growth of 13.6% in April 2007 as compared to 9.9% in April 2006. Industrial growth during 2006-07 went up by 11.5% as compared to 8.2% registered in the previous year. This is the highest growth of the industrial sector since 1995-96. The Manufacturing sector, which has about 80% weightage in the Index of Industrial Production, has registered a record growth of 15.1% in April 2007 as compared to 11.0% in April 2006. Earlier, a record growth of 12.5% was achieved during 2006-07 in the Manufacturing Sector, which augurs well for the 11th Plan, wherein a growth of 12% for the Manufacturing Sector has been envisaged. The Mining and Quarrying sector has shown a growth of 3.4%, whereas the Electricity sector has registered a growth of 8.7% during April 2007. The industries that have performed well in April 2007 include Wood and Wood Products; Furniture & Fixtures registering growth rates of 92.2%, 'Food Products' (55.0%), Machinery and Equipment (19.2%) 'Basic Metal and Alloy Industries' (18.0%), Jute and Other Vegetable Fibre Textiles (17.7%), Leather and Leather & Fur Products (14.7%) and Rubber, Plastic, Petroleum and Coal Products (14.1%). Among the use-base economic sub-groups, both Consumer Goods and Capital Goods have posted impressive rates of 17.7% during April 2007. Basic Goods, Intermediate Goods have recorded growth of 8.9% and 12.6% during April 2007.

According to the Union Minister of State for Textiles E V K S Elangovan, the Indian textile industry, which has accelerated to an annual growth of 9-10 per cent, is expected to grow at a rate of 16 per cent in value terms and reach a level of USD 115 billion by 2012. He said that the global trade of textile and clothing products was set to double from USD 353 billion in 2002 to USD 655 billion by 2010, growing at the rate of eight per cent. The Indian textile exports have increased from USD 12.45 billion in 2002-03 to USD 17.85 billion in 2005-06 and are estimated at USD 19.24 billion dollars in 2006-07. He further added that the exports are projected to grow at a rate of 22 per cent between 2007 and 2012 and are targeted to reach USD 55 billion by 2012.Total investment in the textile industry between 2004-07 was around Rs.64, 478 crore in India, he said adding it was expected to reach Rs.1, 50,600 crore by 2012.

Coal production from captive mines allotted to the private sector is set to increase five-fold over the next five years and will touch the 100-million-tonne mark by 2011-12. This increase will be on the back of increasing allocation of blocks to private sector companies. According to Mr HC Gupta, Secretary, Ministry of coal, the government will increase the number of captive blocks allotted every year for the private sector. As of now, 60 captive blocks, having total reserves of about 7.7 billion tonnes, have been allocated to the private sector - 11 have been allotted to power companies, 46 to iron and steel companies and three to cement companies and others.

According to Ernst & Young's latest report on the rise of telecom in Asia, high valuations will not deter investments in the sector. The country's telecom sector will see investments up to $25 billion over the next five years, projects Ernst & Young.

According to Confederation of Indian Industry, the Indian food sector is estimated to be worth over $200 billion and is expected to grow to $310 billion by 2015.

Indian cellular operators have lined up investments of about $20 billion over the next two years to bring over 80 per cent of the population under mobile coverage. The planned investment for the next couple of years is 50 per cent higher than what has been invested in the last 12 years. According to analysts at Macquarie Research, Sniffing huge potential in the mobile penetration and coverage area of networks, service providers are planning capital expenditure to the tune of $10 billion each in fiscal 2008 and 2009.Given such huge capex plans, the population coverage of mobile services would exceed 80 per cent in the next two years, while providing a much-needed thrust to wireless penetration, the analysts wrote in a research note to its institutional clients. The combined revenue of all operators from their mobile businesses would more than double to 33.1 billion dollars by 2010, from about $12.8 billion in 2006. Total revenue of all telecom operators is also set to nearly double to $43.6 billion in four years, from $22.5 billion last year. The revenue share of mobile business would rise to 76 per cent in the same period, from 57 per cent currently.

Government has set an export target of seven billion dollars for leather and leather products during the current financial year. According to Mr Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Commerce, export revenue during the last financial year was three billion dollars. He further added that leather goods exporters should shift its focus away from Europe to the US market, as its size was much bigger. At present, two-thirds of India's leather and leather goods exports were directed to European markets.

According to a study by FICCI-PricewaterhouseCoopers, the growth story of India's entertainment and media (E&M) industry is unfolding spectacularly as it is set to touch the Rs 1 trillion-mark in just four years time. The study showed that the industry which is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 per cent and which currently hovers around Rs 437 billion is expected to outgrow the country's economy. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers Managing Partner Deepak Kapoor and Executive Director Timmy S Kandhari, this growth is partly due to the several positive measures taken by the government. The report further added that this growth has also been boosted by technological advancements, entry of large corporate players into all segments of the industry.

Raymond Ltd, the textile and apparel major owning brands like Color Plus, Park Avenue, Parx, Manzoni, Be, and Zapp children wear, is aiming to increase its retail top line to Rs 1100 crore by 2010 from Rs 700 crore at present. According to Aniruddha Deshmukh, Raymond's president for retail and FMCG, the company's retail expansion strategy will lead to growth. He further added that the plan is to increase the number of retail stores to 950 by 2010 from 430 at present across the globe. Of the 430 retail stores, comprising The Raymond Shop and exclusive brand outlets, across 170 cities on 10-lakh sqft, 355 are The Raymond Shop, of which 328 are in India and 27 abroad.

American giant Coca Cola has said that it will invest 250 million dollars in India in next three years and said its bottling operations would turn profitable in 2008. According to Irial Finan, Head of Coke's Bottling Operations world wide, In bottling operations, the business will move into profitability next year. In one of the months in 2007, the company broke even but on the full year basis we are expecting to be in profits in 2008.

U.S. technology giant IBM has said that it will invest $six billion dollars in India by 2009. Frank Kern, the IBM President of Asia Pacific, told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the company has invested $2 billion (in the last three years) and will spend $6 billion by 2009.

Mumbai-based Wockhardt Hospitals plans to set up 30 hospitals in the country in five years. According to management sources, the hospitals would cover almost every city of the country. Sources informed that the company is in the process of preparing the blueprint for the project. It will run into several hundred crore rupees. The expansion will be a mix of greenfield projects and management partnerships. Wockhardt is one of the major corporate hospitals groups in the country with over 1500 beds in 10 hospitals in Mumbai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Gujarat and Nagpur.

Consumer markets are undergoing a metamorphosis at an unprecedented rate. The change being witnessed can be attributed to several factors including increasing purchasing power of the masses, shifts in the buying behaviour, demography dynamics, growing urbanisation, opening up of the retail segment to private and foreign players and changing trends/lifestyle.

The production index of consumer durable posted a growth of nine per cent in 2006-07 as against 15.3 per cent a year ago.

According to a survey by The Nielson Company, Consumers in India are the most upbeat in the world.

According to the projections by Ernst & Young, the country's telecom sector will see investments up to $25 billion over the next five years.

The total number of telephone subscribers reached 212.02 million at the end of April 2007 as compared to 206.83 million in March 2007. The overall tele-density has increased to 18.74 in April 2007 as compared to 18.31 in March 2007. In the wireless segment, 5.15 million subscribers have been added in April 2007 while 3.53 million subscribers were added in March 2007. The total wireless subscriber (GSM, CDMA & WLL (F)) base is 171.20 million now.

India, the world's fastest growing wireless market, is set to outpace US to emerge as the second-largest hub for global mobile handset leader Nokia. According to D Shivakumar, Nokia India Managing Director and Vice President, "India is at present Nokia's third largest market and has the potential to become the second largest market after China due to the phenomenal growth in the industry as a whole".

More and more companies are investing and expanding their operation in India in the telecom sector owing to the booming consumer base. Spice Communications Ltd is one such example. The company is looking at expanding its network in Punjab and Karnataka where it is the second and the fifth largest cellular services provider. The wholly-owned subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia (TM) is looking to increase its coverage from 70-80 per cent in Karnataka and to over 90 per cent in Punjab. At present, the company has a coverage capacity of 23 per cent in Karnataka and 50 per cent in Punjab. Spice Communications is also setting up an unspecified number of cell sites for this.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd plans to expand its mobile phone production capacity in India, the world's fastest-growing cellular market, by as much as six times by 2008.

India's automotive sector is also thriving. The cumulative growth of the Passenger vehicles segment during April-May 2007 was 11.61 percent. Passenger cars grew by 10.84 percent, Utility vehicles by 12.20 percent and Multi Purpose Vehicles by 21.93 percent in April-May 2007 compared to the same period last year. In April-May 2007, the commercial vehicles segment grew by 3.61 percent over the same period in 2006. Light commercial vehicles recorded a growth of 18.80 percent; however, medium & heavy commercial vehicles witnessed a fall by 6.14 percent. Three wheelers sales fell by 5.32 percent with sales of both goods carriers decreasing by -8.99 percent and passenger carriers by 2.77 percent during the period. Two wheeler market also registered a negative growth of 8.02 percent during April-May 2007 over April-May 2006. Though scooters, mopeds and electric two wheelers grew by 17.78 percent, 25.53 percent and 101.54 percent respectively, motorcycles, which are the main segment in this category, registered a decline of 13.20 percent.

As consumer tastes veer towards western-style luxury goods and retail concepts, three nations - India, China and Russia - have emerged as the most attractive markets for retail investment. Furthermore, retailers are now marching into smaller cities after testing the larger ones, as per global consulting firm AT Kearney's annual Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), a study of retail investment attractiveness among 30 emerging markets.

Wheat procurement as on April 30, 2007 in the current marketing year (i.e. 2006-07) declined by 10.6 per cent at 7.86 million tonnes as compared with 8.79 million tonnes in the corresponding period of 2005-06. Procurement of rice during the marketing year 2006-07 (as on April 30, 2007) at 21.34 million tonnes was declined by 7.9 per cent than the level of 23.03 million tonnes during the corresponding period of 2005-06.

Stocks of food-grains as on April 1, 2007 was 17.73 million tonnes, which was higher by 13.1 per cent than the level of 17.68 million tonnes as on April 1, 2006.

The government is planning to build up foodgrain stocks abroad to bolster food security. The idea is to use the country's bulging foreign exchange reserves to add to the buffer stock of grain currently held within the country. The Union cabinet secretary has directed the department of food & public distribution "to work out a mechanism for developing food-grains reserve of 2-3 million tonnes abroad by leveraging our foreign reserves".

India will be the world's largest spices processing hub by 2017, according to V J Kurien, chairman, Spices Board. According to him, the board has been making all efforts to achieve the goal within 10 years. A vision document for the purpose is being prepared by a team of experts in the Spices Board and will be finalised in 3-4 months. Currently, the country is handling 44 per cent of world's total spices business quantity wise, and 35 per cent in value terms. More than 70 per cent of the world's business in value-added spices products is also handled by India. Kurien said the emergence of Vietnam as a processing centre would not be a serious threat to India as the country's major firms were more quality conscious. According to the estimates of the board, India had exported value-added spices-based products worth Rs 2,100 crore in 2006-07.

Exports of coir products touched an all-time high of 165,097 tonnes valued at Rs 595.22 crore for 2006-07, according to the provisional estimates of the Coir Board. The exports rose 21.37 per cent in quantity over 136,027 tonnes exported in 2005-06 and increased by 17.07 per cent in value terms compared with Rs 508.45 crore clocked in 2005-06. The Coir Board had projected an export target of Rs 572 crore for FY07. Of the 11 products, coir mats registered the highest exports of 72,147 tonnes worth Rs 454.65 crore. The coir mats exports in FY07 showed an overall growth of 13 per cent in quantity terms and 16 per cent in value terms over the numbers in FY06. In March 2007 alone, the country exported 7,253 tonnes of coir mats worth Rs 43.52 crore. Coir piths exports of 65,006 tonnes valued at Rs 51.85 crore recorded a 22 per cent growth in quantity and 34 per cent rise in value compared with the exports in FY06.

In May 2007, Indian companies raised Rs. 6,988 crore from the primary capital market. Of this amount, contribution of equity shares was Rs. 2,699 crore, debt amounted for Rs.3,093 crore and Rs. 1226 crore was through GDR.

In the first two months of 2007-08, resources raised by Indian corporate amounted to Rs. 10,406 crore, which is less than half of Rs. 26,192 crore mobilized in the same period of 2006.

In the current year, Indian companies were more active in the domestic market than in the overseas market. Of the total resources raised April- May 2007, Rs. 9,007 crore (87 per cent) was from the domestic market as against 70 per cent in the same months of 2006. Overseas contribution was 13 per cent, significantly lower than the 30 per cent a year ago.

Upward movement in the stock market continued in May 2007, which had begun in March 2007. During the month, BSE Sensex and Nifty was up by 4.8 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively. Performance based on broader index, COSPI, was up by six per cent, on top of 7.6 per cent rise recorded in the preceding month. This suggests that performance of lower market cap companies was better than large market cap companies.

During April and May 2007, FIIs and mutual funds purchased equities aggressively from the secondary market. In April 2007, net equity purchases by FIIs amounted to Rs. 5,534 crore while mutual funds net purchases stood at Rs. 4,475 crore and Rs. 1889 crore respectively.

Money supply continues to grow at a robust pace of over 20 per cent. Broad money supply as measured by M3 stood at Rs. 33.3 lakh crore as on 11th May 2007. Amongst the components of Money supply, time deposits with banks are growing at an accelerated pace since October 2006. On 11 May 2007, time deposits stood at Rs. 24 lakh crore. One of the main reasons for the fast growth in time deposits is the high rate of interest of 9-9.5 per cent offered on them, particularly for the fixed deposits for the periods of around two years.

There has been a constant deceleration in the growth rate of net non-monetary liabilities of the reserve Bank of India during the past 11 months. From a high of 91.5 per cent at end-July 2006, it came down to over 40 per cent in the new calendar year and further down to 21 per cent in the first half of May 2007.

Commercial banks' credit to the commercial sector also witnessed a continuous deceleration. From a peak of 28.4 per cent at end July 2006,its growth rate gradually and persistently dropped to 25 per cent till mid-May. The hardening of the lending rates particularly since the beginning of the new calendar year is resulting in this slowdown in credit growth.

Net bank credit to government picked up in the current financial year. After growing at 3-5 per cent till end-March 2007, it rose to around eight per cent.

Yes Bank has launched a $100 million food and agribusiness India fund. The private equity fund plans to invest the entire amount in the next 1-2 years, with an investment between $5 million and $7.5 million per company. It is targeting average annualized returns between 20 per cent and 25 per cent. The bank is in talks with 10 investors, including insurance companies, bilateral institutions and commercial banks who have expressed an interest in contributing to the corpus. The fund will invest in companies operating in fruits and vegetables such as grain-based products, milk and milk-based products, poultry, spirits and beer, tea and coffee, confectionery, farm seeds, food services, food retail, food logistics and agri-infrastructure, including agri-market and cold storages sectors.

The booming consumer finance space and the growing opportunities in corporate finance is forcing foreign banks to set shop in India. The Australian banks have a particular interest in India on the back of the growing trade relations between the two countries and corporate flows. After Macquire, the newest entrant is the Australian-based Westpac Institutional Bank. Westpac has opened a representative office in Mumbai after getting a license within three months. The bank has an alliance with Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), India. The SCB-Westpac alliance had helped the Tatas and Wipro to set up offices in Australia, providing them account management and cash management services. SCB had enabled Rio Tinto, the largest precious metals miners in the world to set shop in India.

The UK-based bank, Barclays PLC, launched its Indian retail operations in May 2007. The various products the bank will offer in the initial period include card services, personal loans, business loans and premier investment services. The personal loans offered by the bank would be offered for a maximum tenure of seven years as against the market average of five years.

Tighter liquidity conditions are forcing banks to shift the focus from secured home loans to unsecured loans such as credit cards and other personal loans, which generate far higher returns than mortgages. Industry estimates show that acquisition of new customers for home loans has fallen by almost 25-30% since January. But bankers expect unsecured personal loans to continue to show strong growth this year. The slowdown in home loan customer acquisition is attributed to banks no longer pushing home loans aggressively. This comes on the back of a sharp rise in interest rates as well as property prices, which are discouraging individuals from investing in real estate. "There are two reasons. First, there should be enough liquidity available to banks at an affordable price. Currently, there is a strain on liquidity in the banking system. So banks prefer to park funds on unsecured loan portfolios such as personal loans, earning higher margins," says Murali Natrajan, Standard Chartered Bank's head, consumer banking, India and Nepal.

Canara Bank has launched a new retail loan scheme called "Canara Guide" to finance Tax Return Preparers (TRPs) selected by the Union Finance Ministry. It is a novel scheme introduced to provide self-employment opportunities to unemployed or partially employed graduates all over the country.

The Index of Six core-infrastructure industries having a combined weight of 26.7 per cent in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with base 1993-94 stood at 234.1 (provisional) in May 2007 and registered a growth of 8.7% (provisional) compared to a growth of 7.2 % in May 2006. During April-May 2007-08, six core-infrastructure industries registered a growth of 8.1%(provisional) as against 7.2% during the corresponding period of the previous year.

Crude petroleum production (weight of 4.17% in the IIP) registered a negative growth of 1.6% (provisional) in May 2007 compared to a growth rate of 1.2% in May 2006. The Crude petroleum production registered a growth of (-)0.1% (provisional) during April-May 2007-08 compared to (-) 0.3% during the same period of 2006-07.

Petroleum refinery production (weight of 2.00% in the IIP) registered a growth of 14.9% (provisional) in May 2007 compared t growth of 12.1% in May 2006. The Petroleum refinery production registered a growth of 15.0% (provisional) during April-May 2007-08 compared to 12.6% during the same period of 2006-07.

Coal production (weight of 3.22% in the IIP) registered a growth of 0.9% (provisional) in May 2007 compared to a growth rate 8.3% in May 2006. Coal production grew by 0.7% (provisional) during April-May 2007-08 compared to an increase of 5.9% during the same period of 2006-07.

Electricity generation (weight of 10.17% in the IIP) registered a growth of 9.3% (provisional) in May 2007 compared to a growth rate 5.1% in May 2006. Electricity generation grew by 9.0% (provisional) during April-May 2007-08 compared to 5.5% during the same period of 2006-07.

Cement production (weight of 1.99% in the IIP) registered a growth of 9.4% (provisional) in May 2007 compared to 6.8% in May 2006. Cement Production grew by 7.4% (provisional) during April-May 2007-08 compared to an increase of 9.4% during the same period of 2006-07.

Finished (carbon) Steel production (weight of 5.13% in the IIP) registered a growth of 11.8% (provisional) in May 2007 compared to 10.7% (estimated) in May 2006. Finished (carbon) Steel production grew by 10.1 (provisional) during April-May 2007-08 compared to an increase of 10.4% during the same period of 2006-07.

The inter-ministerial Board of Approval for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) has formally cleared 26 proposals and gave in-principle clearance to another six. Among the major zones to receive formal approval, which is the last stage before an SEZ is notified, is Reliance Industries's 440-hectare multi-service zone at Gurgaon, Haryana. With this, RIL has received formal clearance for two of the five SEZs it proposes to set up. The 2,850-hectare Rewas Ports Ltd zone, in which companies owned by RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani and close associate Anil Jain have a 51 per cent stake, was given in-principle approval, the second-last stage in the approval process.

Government has approved setting up of five sector specific special economic zones (SEZ) for automobiles and automobile component manufacturing, envisaging an investment of Rs 3,593.95 crore. Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jairam Ramesh has said that the government has given formal approvals for two auto SEZs, one each in Jharkhand and Maharashtra, while it has granted in principle approvals for setting up another three SEZs in Haryana, Maharashtra and West Bengal. He further added that the formally approved SEZ projects include one by two-wheeler major Bajaj Auto Ltd in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, entailing an investment of Rs 200 crore while the other approved auto SEZ would be set up Adityapur Industrial Area Development Authority in Adityapur, Jharkhand, at an investment of Rs 30.58 crore.

Exports from Special Economic Zones (SEZs) grew 52.31 per cent in 2006-07 to Rs 34,787 crore from Rs 22,840 crore in the previous year. The growth rate was more than double the 24.71 per cent increase recorded in the previous year. According to Mr L.B. Singhal, Director-General of the Export Promotion Council for EoUs and SEZ units, incremental exports from existing SEZs and contribution from new SEZs accounted for this increase. He added that exports from SEZs are likely to touch Rs 67,300 crore in 2007-08. He further added that they expect almost 100 per cent increase in exports for the current year. Meanwhile, the total investments that would be made in the 234 SEZs for which formal approval has already been given has been estimated at Rs 3,00,000 crore.