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 on 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 Western Part which includes Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Goa. States on the Western Part are major driving force of Indian Economy. Especially Gujarat and Maharashtra are major industrialized states in India and take half of Indian manufacturing industry.
In terms of economy scales, Maharashtra is the largest economy in India with 13.3% of Indian GDP. The FDI inflows into Maharashtra is about USD 14 billion from 1999 to 2007 and it is almost 20% of whole FDI inflows in India. Gujarat is newly industrializing state and very active to attract foreign investment.
In terms of manufacturing environments, Maharashtra and Gujarat are developing the largest number of industrial parks in India. Most of industrial parks in this region are equipped with the best level infrastructures in India and have good accessibility to other regions. As those industrial parks play important role in state export and economy, other states also started to develop industrial parks.
In terms of market environments, income and consumption level of people in western India are higher than other region. Per capita income of Goa is the highest level in India, and it is almost 3 times higher than Indian average.
However, there are also some risk factors in Maharashtra and Gujarat. For Maharashtra, lack of industrial sites near Mumbai and slow treatment of legal claim could be a problem. And For Gujarat, companies should keep in mind religious conflicts and labor disputes in the state.