This past week I have been following announcements of major infrastructure projects planned over the next few years in India. Depending on whether you count secondary developments, these projects are worth somewhere between USD $10 and USD $80B, and this does not account for World Bank funded projects, which I did not review. Here is a quick summary with links to the supporting news releases and articles:

1. Mumbai Megapolis - Plans for a new city, one third the size of existing Mumbai, to be a 21st century megapolis with its own dedicated airport, rapid transit sea-link connecting it with Mumbai, and living conditions on par with the swankiest, most sophisticated cities of the world. The Reliance Group plans to make a USD $5.5B invetment, with projections for as much as USD $55B to follow from other developers who will put up factories, residential complexes, hospitals, hotels and shopping malls.

2. Doubling borrowing from ADB - Finance minister P Chidambaram on Monday said that India will ramp up its overall borrowing from ADB to $2 billion a year by 2009 from the current level of $1.2 billion, with special emphasis on the infrastructure sector. "Among the big-ticket items in the transport sector are two projects - the national highway public private partnership (PPP) project 2006 and the national highway PPP II project, 2008."

3. India eyes Africa - Not only is India planning huge domestic expansion, but Indian firms are tracking more than USD $5B to be awarded by the African Development Bank to develop infrastructure in Africa. Although Indian firms will have to compete with Middle Eastern and Chinese firms for these projects, there is no doubt that the experience gained with infrastructure at home in India will give them a leg up!

4. Indian Infrastructure Funds - There are at least four Indian-based funds in the infrastructure sector: Tata Infrastructure Fund (USD $165M), Prudential ICICI Infrastructure Fund, Sahara Infrustructure Fund, and Canbank Infrastructure Fund. However, these funds are not investing solely in traditional infrastructure assets - i.e. roads, ports, airports, power etc. Instead, many of them also are investing in telecom, banking and hotels, citing diversification as the guiding principle.

5. JBIC awards 10 loans in 2005 ODA package - the Japan Bank for International Cooperation announced recently that it would give assistance worth US $1.4 Billion towards ten new Indian infrastructure projects, all of which will break ground in the next few years. Ashwin noted this announcement in a blog posting earlier this month.

Posted by rjorr at April 24, 2006 3:20 PM