The ASSOCHAM forecast in this regard is based on the fact that since real estate in India would be a hot market, the foreign investors are constantly looking at India for parking their surpluses, as returns on such investments would be quite high in the near future.

Releasing the assessment on FDI’s contribution to the domestic real estate market, ASSOCHAM President, Sajjan Jindal said that in future, higher interest rates would subside and India is likely to scale a GDP growth of over 10% for at least a decade, creating huge space for overseas investors in the real estate sector.

At present, the domestic real estate market is expected to be of US$15bn in which the FDI contribution is estimated around less than US$4bn. The bank credit to this sector by the end of 2007-08 has been estimated at over Rs3500bn which will multiple substantially in the coming years in view of the growth that the sector is expected to register, adds the ASSOCHAM analysis.

Another reason as to why the real estate sector would witness a boom is, that currently the foreign developers could undertake construction activities in a minimum space of 50,000 sq. ft. as a result of which the FDI component in domestic real estate market has been restricted.

The ceiling of 50,000 sq. ft. would be lifted by the Government as it is under constant pressure to increase it so that higher FDI in real estate sector can be facilitated. ASSOCHAM expects the ceiling of 50,000 sq. ft. would be enhanced to a minimum of 2 lakh sq. ft. in the next 10 years in a gradual manner and result in much higher foreign capital absorption.

The only problem the real estate sector is currently confronting is lack of approvals for setting up townships, as there is involvement of the Center and a number of state agencies. In view of ASSOCHAM, as the real estate sector opens up, the multiple approvals will have to be done away with. This will be particularly so because in the Asian region, India is the only country which offers returns ranging between 20-25% on commercial and residential properties as against 15-18% in rest of Asia.

Interestingly, ASSOCHAM has also projected that the foreign investments in the real estate development will come through private equity instead of institutional mechanism. The real estate story in India would grow bigger as the IT sector alone is expected to require about 200mn sq. ft. of space. It is also estimated that in India�s residential sector, the housing shortage is around 20mn units, of which nearly 7mn units are estimated to be in urban India.

The increase in purchasing power and exposure to organised retail formats have also redefined the consumption patterns for dwelling units. As a result, retail projects have been mushrooming in smaller towns and cities. The retail market is likely to grow at around 35% which will again create scope for real estate developers, the ASSOCHAM Chief said.

As per ASSOCHAM estimates, nearly 30mn sq. ft. of organized retail space is currently available. Another 100mn sq. ft. is likely to be added by end of 2008 from over 300 malls. Out of these, 20mn sq. ft. is slated to come up in Delhi and Mumbai.

With the retail sector experiencing a boom, the country is witnessing a spurt in extremely large retail spaces. Shopping malls with over 1mn sq. ft. of space have become the order of the day. About 20 of these are now at various stages of construction. Majority of retailers are now planning to expand within the current city and equally large number of them are willing to open new stories in other cities.

In 2007, bilateral trade rose by a hefty 98 per cent to reach $1.8 billion, including Oman LNG exports. Wadhwa underlined the “amazing coincidence” that infrastructure, real estate and construction sectors had been a major engine of economic growth in both India and Oman.

He was speaking at the third meeting of the recently launched India-Oman Business Forum, an informal association comprising key Indian and Omani business leaders from the private sector held at the Indian embassy here.

The event coincided with the launch of an India-centric real estate fund by Cordea Nichani, a joint venture of Cordea Savills LLP and Nichani Holdings LLC. Wadhwa stressed the role of the forum in bolstering trade ties and the steady growth of trade and investment between the two countries.

Wael Ahmed Al Lawati, CEO of Oman Tourism development Company, a wholly-owned Oman government venture, spoke about new projects worth billions of dollars coming up in the Sultanate, adding that he hoped entrepreneurs from India “will look at the opportunities seriously.”

Rajan Nichani, Nick Hayward and Bhabin Thakker explained various aspects of the new real estate fund, such as asset management strategy, risk hedging and expected returns. The fund is primarily intended to be invested in an IT-focused SEZ near Bangalore and a couple of major real estate projects in South India.

Chairman and CEO, Axiom Estates, Rajeev Goenka said that Ahmadabad is becoming new hub of realty business. He said that NRI’s account for nearly 15-30% in realty sales. The current road show held in UK revealed that Ahmadabad is becoming major reality destination for the world. It has attracted about 300 realty projects in the international roadshow held in UK as compared to other 20 participant cities.

Gujarat Institute of Housing and Estate Developers (GIHED)’s vice chief, Mr. Suresh Patel said that sub-prime crisis in US is a major cause of NRI’s investment in Indian cities. Ahmadabad provides good infrastructure such as road, transport and power to the investors as compared to other tier II/III cities. That’s why, it has become charming destination for realty business.

ShoppingTrip360 leverages a network of wireless sensor-based applications within the store that allows people (shoppers), places (retailers) and products (CPG companies) to collaborate in real-time by creating an information ecosystem. This permission-based, implicit and seamless exchange of information delivers value to shoppers, retailers and CPG companies.

“Companies around the world continue to recognize the need to transform themselves in order to be more competitive,” said S. Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Infosys Technologies. ” Infosys remains the partner of choice for global brands in this journey because we are creating a new generation of services like ShoppingTrip360 that enable them to innovate closer to their customers.”

By gaining insights into shopper and shelf activity throughout the store, ShoppingTrip360 delivers a paradigm shift in the in-store shopping experience and enables: Retailers to know the total number of shoppers and their shopping trip paths, allowing them to gauge in-store energy demand based on occupancy, or open new checkout counters when lines start forming. They can also monitor shelf-level inventory of fast moving products without using expensive RFID tags.

CPG companies to make choices on the right locations in the store to place their promotional products. They also gain greater visibility on the efficacy of their promotional spend through an analysis of shoppers who interact with a promotional display or shopper traffic to a particular area and actual purchase.

Shoppers to use a concierge service on their cell phones to organize their shopping trip. While at the store, they may access their shopping list, locate products, retrieve recipes, and download coupons, with personalized promotional offers that could be redeemed electronically.

The patent-pending technology behind ShoppingTrip360 is based on Infosys’ intellectual property and designed to operate with existing store and information technology infrastructure. Infosys fully invests in the platform infrastructure, protecting clients from the risk of capital investment and technology obsolescence thereby eliminating the traditional barriers to adoption of in-store technologies within the industry . Clients subscribe to ShoppingTrip360 services and pay for the information that enables business benefits.

“Retailers and CPG companies are seeking new ways to collaborate seamlessly in order to better understand and engage their shoppers in today’s hypercompetitive landscape,” said U.B. Pravin Rao, senior vice president and head of Retail, Consumer Packaged Goods and Logistics, Infosys Technologies. “ShoppingTrip360 answers this need.”

Infosys has developed a roadmap for the ShoppingTrip360 platform to enable future applications based on the real-time collaboration between shoppers, retailers and CPG brands. With select customers in pilots, Infosys has established a business model that leverages the scalability of a platform to reduce the cost per application to clients.

“The fund has been launched to tap into the Oman market and also give investment opportunities to the large NRI (non-resident Indian) community here,” India’s Ambassador to Oman Anil Wadhwa, who launched the fund at the third meeting of the India-Oman Business Forum over the weekend, revealed from Muscat.

There are around 500,000 expatriate Indians in Oman. “Besides, Omani businesses are also very keen to invest in India’s infrastructure sector,” he added. Called ‘Cordea-Nichani Indian Opportunities No 1′, the fund is primarily intended to be invested in an information technology-focussed special economic zone (SEZ) near Bangalore and a few prestigious real estate projects in south India.

Cordea Nichani is looking to raise around $30-40 mn from Omani institutional investors as well as big corporate houses and government pension funds, according to a statement issued by the Indian embassy in Oman. The joint venture expects to secure returns in the range of 25 per cent on investments over a six-year timeframe.

The overall deal value is expected to be around $90,000 in the first phase of implementation. In4velocity’s unique enterprise resource management system (ERMS) application, In4Suite, is India’s largest selling and the only integrated end-to-end solution for real estate and property development firms.

A property developer can automate all key business processes right from land acquisition to engineering, from purchase to sales and from rental to property management. He can further bring all his customers, suppliers, contractors and investors online in a collaborative environment. The application acts as a “business in software” approach for real estate developers and provides web based real time reporting to all key stake holders.

Rahul Chawla, CEO, In4velocity Systems, “With over 8,000 users of our application across India and the Middle East, we are fast emerging as the de-facto standard for the real estate development community. Whether it is a small start ups, or a well established player, our solution has proven scaling capability for the industry. Our 100 percent focus on this industry has given us the depth in domain and skills which is difficult to replicate and I believe contributes to a 100 percent successful delivery each time, every time.”

“We are extremely happy and excited that QVC has selected us after doing an extensive survey of the market. Like us, QVC has a unique selling proposition to its customers and is a unique business in itself. We look forward to a long and lasting relationship with them.” added Chawla.

Prakash Gurbaxani, founder & CEO, QVC Realty, “We are focused on developing signature real estate properties across major Tier I and Tier II cities in India. Our projects will cover a range of residential, commercial, office, retail, hospitality, mixed-use integrated townships and SEZs.”

According to a building industry spokesperson, the industry has taken up projects after taking genuine demand into account. Nithyananda Kamath of Ace Structures says: “Supply in Kozhikode is just enough to meet demand.” The demand is from actual customers whose housing needs are genuine and there is very little investment demand, he adds.

Builders say rising interest rates and slowing growth may not affect demand. Moreover, like elsewhere in the state, Kozhikode also gets a large inflow of NRI money into real estate. However, the focus of the builders is on domestic demand, growing at a healthy rate.

Builders in Kozhikode have placed their hope on the growing importance of the city as an IT destination. In fact, many companies have started looking at Kozhikode seriously while deciding on their future investment plans. A Hungarian company has already announced its plans to open a centre in Kozhikode employing almost 1,000 IT professionals initially.

To showcase Kozhikode to the IT investors, an organisation called Calicut IT Initiative is holding a IT Fair in the city. The fair would try to communicate the advantages of investing in Kozhikode to the investors. The city is also witnessing a boom in the IT infrastructure sector. While the state IT park, Cyber Park, is fast becoming a reality, the 350-acre IT park by the Aditya Birla Group is awaiting government clearance. The proposed Advanced Technology Park spread across 60 acres would be more of an incubation and R&D centre, sources said.

It is against this backdrop that the city is getting ready for the property show. The rates for residential apartments are now in the range of Rs 2,100 to Rs 3,500 per square feet and rates for premium apartments within the city, especially in places like Nadakkavu, have gone up to Rs 3,500 per sq ft.

Expansion of Kozhikode airport, the growth of tourism and the potential of the city to emerge as a new IT destination are the aspects on which the builders are pinning hopes on. Taking into account the all-round development of the city, the builders have launched new projects. Says Mr Mehaboob of Hilite Builders: “A shopping mall, Blue Diamond, is out new project in the city.” Mr Mehaboob’s first mall in the city was leased out in record time. The lease rental has gone up from Rs 110 per sq ft for the first project to Rs 150 per square feet in the second project, he said.

The growth in general business in the city has also led to a boom in commercial space construction. Hilite Builders are launching a residential project which will have 5 lakh square feet of commercial space. Rates for commercial space are now ruling between Rs 5000 per sq ft and Rs 6000 per sq ft, while for the premium category it would be over Rs 10,000 per sq feet.

There are about 40 builders in Kozhikode and its suburbs. They ensure that supply is kept in line with the demand. As a result, there has been a consistency in the rates for built-up space in both residential and commercial categories.

At 14,658.38, the Sensex is up with a small gain of 1.69 points now. The Nifty is up with a slender gain of 1.75 points at 4415.30. Besides a host of large cap stocks, several stocks from midcap and smallcap segments too have surged higher on sustained buying support. Midcap and smallcap indices have outperformed the premier indices and are up by 1.43% and 1.3% respectively.

Heavyweight bank stocks ICICI Bank (2.55%), HDFC Bank (1.5%) and State Bank of India (1.6%) rule firm with impressive gains. IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab National Bank, IndusInd Bank, Bank of Baroda, Yes Bank and Federal Bank have gained 2% - 3%. Axis Bank, Bank of India, Kotak Bank, Karnataka Bank, Allahabad Bank, Union Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Vijaya Bank, Syndicate Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce have also moved up sharply.

Realty stocks India Bulls Real Estate and Mahindra Lifespace have gained 4.5% and 4.2% respectively. HDIL has notched up a gain of 3.1%. Unitech is up by around 2.75%. Sobha Developers has gained 2.5%. Anant Raj Industries, Parsvnath Developers, Omaxe, Ansal Infrastructure, Penland, Akruti City and Orbit Corporation have gained 1% - 2%.

Besides the three bank heavyweights, Reliance Communications (1.9%), Maruti Suzuki (1.85%), Reliance Infrastructure (1.75%), Satyam Computer Services (1.7%), Infosys Technologies (1.5%), Tata Power (1.25%), AC (1.2%) and Hindalco (1.05%) are the prominent gainers in the Sensex. Tata Motors, NTPC and Ranbaxy Laboratories have posted modest gains.

TCS, HDFC, Sterlite Industries, Reliance Industries and DLF have declined sharply on selling pressure. Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel, ONGC, Tata Steel, BHEL, ITC, Jaiprakash Associates and Larsen & Toubro also exhibit weakness.