– IF YOU PREFER to start your own development or sales project and it is not too expensive, you are better off doing it yourself. The challenge is to find the right people for the right position, but I believe that Swedish companies should send their top talents.

 

ROBIN SUKHIA BELIEVES that middle sized companies with large resources should set up directly and plan a strategy for the sub-continent. India is an enormous country where each region represents a big local market. It is therefore important to find the right sub-market at an early stage since the country is too large to cover all at once. Where you start depends on what type of market and qualifications you are looking for.

– Maharashtra including Mumbai has lots of industry and is the wealthiest state in India. This is also where you find the finance and owner families. Nagpur in the same state is a large distribution centre in need of logistics. The state of Gujarat in the northwest has lots of heavy industry, while the capital Delhi is preferable if the Indian government and the public sector are potential customers for an infrastructure project.

Mumbai, former Bombay, is the biggest city and commercial center in India. More than half of the biggest companies in the country have their head office here and over 50 percent of the foreign commerce take place in Mumbai. The city also has the Bombay Stock Exchange, whose stock market value has risen with 400 percent during the last four year.
 

YOU MIGHT EXPERIENCE Indian bureaucracy as heavy and Robin Sukhia points out the advantage of hiring a local accountant or lawyer. India is a functioning constitutional state even if it is sometimes slow. To withdraw profits from the country is no problem, even though most companies chose to reinvest the surplus locally. Robin Sukhia predicts that the Indian rupee will be entirely convertible in 2009. Corporate tax rates vary between states but are 30 percent in average. Dividend is tax-exempt.

 

India's 200 cows are sacred - and seem to know it, since they unwillingly move over.


IN CERTAIN INDUSTRIES (strategic to India) there are restrictions for foreign ownership. In retail, only 51 percent of certain types of business chains can have non-Indian owners while the equivalent for telecom and media is 75 percent. 

 

Jonas Rehnberg