Since 2004, all over the world has been focusing on continuous high economic growth and rising international status of India. Along with international trend, Korea is also keeping up studies regarding India and its changes. But as most of studies are tried to cover the whole India, there has been limitations to understand Indian regional market more practically and specifically. Actually, India has too various languages, religions, and tribes to consider as one country. In order to provide more practical information for Korean companies and government that are interested in Indian market, it is necessary to collect and analyze region-wise and state-wise information.
The purpose of this study is to provide assessments on investment environments as well as basic information of Indian regional market. For the first step, we divided India into four parts East, West, South, and North. And then, advanced market research for major states and basic market research for minor states was conducted according to four parts.
The study is comprised of Basic Investment Environments, Manufacturing & Market Environments, and Political & Economical Openness for each state. And analysis on risk factors and assignments of four parts were conducted based on above market research, and assessments and implications of the study are provided on the last part of each report. For this study, first of all, we collected and classified region-wise and state-wise information. Second, field researches for manufacturing environments and market environments were conducted for major 13 states. Last, in order to understand political environments and risk factors, we gathered opinions from Indian experts and Korean companies in India through interviews and meetings.
This report is a study on Eastern Part which includes West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. Eastern states are not very familiar with us, except Kolkata which had been the capital of India under the control of the British, and a project by POSCO in Orissa.
Eastern states are relatively behind in various aspects including economic development. West Bengal is the 4th largest economy in India which takes almost 11% of Indian GDP. But the state is backward stepping in terms of its economy, because of the political conflicts with local communist party in power. Besides West Bengal, other states have small economy and each of them take just 2~3% of Indian GDP. And the level of industrial development in this region is very low, and states have a few of industrial parks with poor infrastructure system. However, Chhattisgarh and Bihar is currently experiencing rapid economic growth with its abundant natural resources.
It is recommended to consider various risk factors to invest to eastern region, such as dangers form Naxalite, political conflicts, lack of infrastructure including industrial parks, and unfavorable attitude of state governments to foreign companies.