WEEKLY ECONOMIC BULLETIN - India in...

NEWS FEATUREMake In India: With investments pouring in, India logs into hi-tech manufacturingNeither Thailand nor Vietnam were on the radar of hightech manufacturers even a decade ago. Today Thailandis the world's largest producer of hard disks and Vietnam boasts of Asia's most modern fabs or chip-making factories. For much longer than that India has been trying to attract high-tech manufacturers, without success.

Indian ecommerce market to grow fastest globally over 3 years: Morgan StanleyIndia received $6.6 billion in venture capital and private equity investment in 2015, a 50% increase from theprevious year, which probably contributed to a steep growth in the gross merchandise value for ecommercecompanies, Morgan Stanley said.

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Poland eyes setting up 2.7 million tonnes per annum coking coal plant in IndiaPoland has proposed to set up a 2.7 million tonne per annum (mtpa) coking coal plant in India. It has also of-fered to share its expertise in exploration of copper and silver with Indian companies.


Apple to set up first technology development centre outside the US in HyderabadApple will build its first technology development centre outside the US in Hyderabad with an investment of $25 million (Rs 170 crore), likely employing about 4,500 people, a senior Telangana state government official said.

OVERSEAS INVESTMENTS

ITP Division Ministry of

External Affairs Government of India

Issue No 663 I February 16- 22, 2016

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TRADE NEWSIndian, Israeli firms join hands for defenceAbout 25 Indian and 100 Israeli firms will come together later this month for a unique business seminar ondefence and security in Israel. More in this section

p. 07/08

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SECTORAL NEWSGovt opens up 25% share of defence production to private firmsPrivate sector manufacturers have an opportunity to pick up a 25% share of defence production, said A.K.Gupta, secretary, department of defence production, ministry of defence, on Tuesday.


NEWS ROUND-UPNarendra Modi launches Make in India Week; vows no retrospective taxLaunching the largest-ever manufacturing summit Make In India Week in Mumbai, Prime Minister NarendraModi on Saturday said the government is swiftly working towards a transparent and predictable tax regime tomake the country a global manufacturing hub.


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Issue no 663 I February 16-22, 2016

>> NEWS FEATURE

Make In India: With investments pouringin, India logs into hi-tech manufacturingNeither Thailand nor Vietnam were on the radar of hightech manufacturers even a decade ago.

Today Thailand is the world's largest pro-ducer of hard disks and Vietnam boasts ofAsia's most modern fabs or chip-making facto-ries. For much longer than that India has beentrying to attract high-tech manufacturers, with-out success.

What passed of as sophisticated plants atbest produced low- to midrange mobile phones,computers or plastic casings, they were essen-tially assembly line operations with parts pro-cured from factories in China, Taiwan and puttogether in India like flat screen TVs, laptops,desktop computers and so on.

"India was always a software story, high-techmanufacturing was never a priority," says AmarBabu, chief operating officer, Lenovo Asia-Pa-cific and chairman Lenovo India.

Industry experts point out India never had the 'ecosystem' of component makers chip makers, or specialists making dis-plays for medical equipment, TVs or smartphones. Road and port connectivity was poor. Global and local manufacturersgrumbled that sometimes parts from ports took two months to reach their factories.

There was too much paper work and too many bureaucratic bottlenecks. Importing smartphones, medical equipment andsmart TVs was far easier than trying to make in India. That seems to be changing, thanks to the government acting as a cata-lyst, kindling hope that high-tech gadgets will be made in India. "Technology is seen as an enabler for governance and betterlife," says Babu. And about time too. The market for electronics promises to be $400 billion by 2020. Without local supplyIndia will be importing three-fourths of that, easily exceeding oil imports in value.

With a market of more than a billion consumers with increasing purchasing power, local manufacturing is a compellingidea. The 'Make In India' drive, which has identified hitech electronics as a focus sector, has contributed to changing senti-ment and attracting investments.

Lenovo, the $46-billion Chinese gadget-maker already has two factories in India. Others, including global giants such asGE, Siemens, HTC, Toshiba, and Boeing, are lining up to set up factories in India. Even local players like Micromax which till2012, imported phones they sold in India are now preparing to produce locally.

Rajesh Agarwal, cofounder, Micromax sees this wave as the third phase of high-tech manufacturing. The first is assemblyline, where factories here assemble imported components.

Second is CKD kits being imported and sold in India. "Now, in the third phase we are moving to local sourcing of componentsas the components ecosystem is getting ready," says Agarwal. A Japanese and South Korean consortium is setting up a fab inMadhya Pradesh at an investment of $1.2 billion. Foxconn, which makes iPhones for Apple, plans to set up seven factories inIndia, two are ready at Sriperumbudur near Chennai and Sri City in Andhra Pradesh. Foxconn assembles Xiaomi's Redmi 2Prime smartphone at its Sri City plant. The government has looked at the pain points and is providing solutions. "In the nexttwo years more components will be locally available. And in five years (Micromax) will be 100% made in India," says Agarwal.

Source: The Economic Times

WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> NEWS FEATURE3


Indian ecommerce market to grow fastestglobally over 3 years: Morgan StanleyIndia received $6.6 billion in venture capital and private equity investment in 2015, a 50% increase from the previousyear, which probably contributed to a steep growth in the gross merchandise value for ecommerce companies, MorganStanley said.

The GMV of the country's top three ecommerce companies exceeded that of the top 10 offline retailers last year, itsaid. Since the Indian market has huge potential, the opportunities are making "the story compelling for global in-vestors," it said.

Indian ecommerce market to grow fastest globally over 3 years: Morgan StanleyThe key growth drivers will be greater Internet penetration, a rise in the number of online shoppers and an increase in

per capita income."We now increase our 2020 estimate (of India's ecommerce market) from $102 billion to $119 billion," Morgan Stanley

Research said in a report. "This takes our estimate of the total Indian Internet market size from $137 billion to $159 bil-lion (now including online food aggregation business)." Morgan Stanley said a global macroeconomic slowdown could af-fect the flow of VC/PE money into India, thereby slowing GMV growth and lowering valuations.

India is adding three Internet users every second and is already the second-largest Internet market globally in termsof users, according to the report dated February 12.

"We expect Internet penetration to increase from 32% in 2015 to 59% in 2020, translating to a near-doubling of the In-ternet user base," the US bank said. It estimates India will have almost 320 million online shoppers by 2020 comparedwith 50 million in 2015.

"Per capita incomes are likely to double by 2025 and this should drive higher aspirations of the Indian consumer," ac-cording to the report.

The top three online retail platforms dominated the Indian ecommerce market in 2015 with a combined market shareof 83%. Flipkart, including Myntra, maintained its No. 1 position with a 45% market share, followed by Snapdeal (ex-Freecharge) at 26% and Amazon India at 12%. Paytm had a 7% share. At $13.8 billion, the GMV of the top three ecom-merce companies exceeded that of the top 10 offline retailers at $12.6 billion last year.


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>> OVERSEAS INVESTMENT

Apple will build its first technology development centre outside the US in Hyderabad with an investment of $25 million (Rs170 crore), likely employing about 4,500 people, a senior Telangana state government official said.

Apple's centre will occupy 250,000 square feet in Tishman Speyer's WaveRock facility in the city's IT corridor and is setto start in the latter half of this year.

"This is correct. MoU will be signed after some approvals come," Jayesh Ranjan, IT secretary of Telangana, told ETwhileconfirming the details of Apple's investment. "They're (Apple) waiting for the SEZ approval (for the area) to come, which isexpected to be given in a couple of days."

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, did not re-spond to queries seeking confirmation. The com-pany has been in talks with real estate firmTishman Speyer for a longterm lease of about250,000 sqft, ET reported last month, citing peo-ple familiar with the matter.

Apple follows Google and Microsoft, which havesaid they will invest in the state. Google plans toopen South Asia's biggest campus and its only fa-cility outside the US in Hyderabad in the next fewyears chief executive officer Sundar Pichai an-nounced in December. Microsoft also plans to ex-pand operations in the state.

The rising importance of India as a market forApple marks a sea change from a couple of years ago.

The US smartphone maker's move comes on the heels of applying for a single-brand retail licence that will enable it toopen its stores in India.

The government has eased foreign investment rules for singlebrand retailing and relaxed local procurement conditionsfor hightech companies. At present, Apple sells iPhones, iPads, Macs and other products through third-party resellers.

India is the world's fastest-growing smartphone market, having surpassed the US in 2015, making a strong case forApple to set up stores in the country and reap the benefits of a large software development resource pool.

The South Asian nation is becoming an important market for Apple, where its iPhones have immense brand recall andmassive aspirational value, especially among the youth. Apple CEO Tim Cook recognised the growth potential in the coun-try after the company's India revenue growth surpassed that of developed markets.

Revenue in India surged 38 per cent in the October-December period, exceeding the 11 per cent growth in overall emerg-ing markets and 14 per cent in Greater China, Apple's second-largest market after the US.

Apple's iPhone sales volumes grew 76 per cent in India compared with 45 per cent in Korea, the Middle East and Africa,20 per cent in several western European countries and 18 per cent in mainland China in the quarter.

The company posted its best quarterly sales in India with volumes crossing 800,000 units in the three months endedDecember, when sales in developed markets faltered.

"During hard times like now, it provides an opportunity to invest in newer markets such as India where there are long-term prospects," Cook said.


Apple to set up first technology developmentcentre outside the US in Hyderabad

WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> OVERSEAS INVESTMENT5


Poland has proposed to set up a 2.7 million tonne per annum (mtpa) coking coal plant in India. It has also offered toshare its expertise in exploration of copper and silver with Indian companies.

At a meeting between union steel & mines minister Narendra Singh Tomar and deputy prime minister of Poland Prof.Piotr Glinski in Mumbai on Monday, the latter expressed interest in mutual collaboration in the area of mining and min-eral exploration. Polish companies, like KGHM, have expertise in exploration of copper and silver which can be sharedwith Indian companies, he added.

Glinski shared plans of setting up a state-of-the-art coking coal plant of 2.7 mtpa in India andoffered knowledge exchange in the area of cokingcoal production and skill development.

Incidentally, Poland which is a world leader incoking coal production and is the second largestexporter of coking coal in the world, has sent a50- member delegation led by the Deputy Primeinister to participate in Make-in-India Week pro-gramme at Mumbai.

The steel minister welcomed Poland's pro-posal of setting up a coking coal plant, as the twocountries agreed to cooperate in the area of cleancoal technology. Both sides also agreed to carryforward the discussion in the forthcoming Kolkata Mining Exhibition, where Poland is planning to participate. The steelminister also exhorted the

Polish delegation to explore avenues for investment and collaboration in mining, exploration, Make in India and otherspecial drives being undertaken by the government of India.

On the Indian side, delegates who attended the meeting included the Indian ambassador to Poland, joint secretariesfrom the steel and mines ministries, CMD MECL, CMD MECON, DG GSI and directors from Steel Authority of India Lim-ited and NMDC.


Poland eyes setting up 2.7 million tonnesper annum coking coal plant in India

WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> OVERSEAS INVESTMENT6


Gujarat is now home to the world's largest scooter manufacturing site, as Japanese two-wheeler giant Honda Motorcy-cle and Scooter India (HMSI) started its fourth plant in India at Vithalapur, a scooters’-only facility in Gujarat.

Spread over 250 acres, the facility has come up in just 13 months with an investment of nearly Rs 1,100 crore. Ini-tially, the plant would produce around 600,000 scooters per annum which would be scaled up to 1.2 million scootersper annum by mid 2016. With the Gujarat plant commencing full production, HMSI's net installed capacity in India wouldbe scaled up to 5.8 million units per annum in 2016 from 4.6 million units at present.

Around 22 vendors of HMSI have set up shop in the vicinity of Vithalapur and in Sanand (about 40 km from here), andhave cumulatively invested around Rs 1,100 crore in Gujarat.

HMSI claimed that its fourth plant in India has created job opportunities for 3,000 people (directly and indirectly).About 85 per cent of the operators on the shop floor are local, while about 50 per cent of the managerial staff are fromGujarat.

Inaugurating the facility here, the company said that it was all set to take the two-wheeler market by storm with itsall new 'fun-bike' Navi that would hit the Indian roads by April this year. It would, however, be made at its Tapukara plantin Rajasthan and would sport the 110-cc Activa HET engine.

After running full capacity at its three existing plants in India last year, the fourth plant is expected to give HMSI themuch-needed volume boost required to clear its current order backlog of 30,000 scooters till January.

Explaining the increasing 'scooterisation' of the Indian as well as the Asian markets, YS Guleria, senior vice president,sales and marketing, HMSI said, automatic scooters now contribute nearly 30 per cent of the two-wheeler market inIndia, and in the next five years, we see this share going up to 35 per cent.

"Between April 2015 to January 2016, while the overall two-wheeler market in India has declined by 1 per cent, mo-torcycles have registered a sales decline of 2 per cent, while scooters have registered a growth of 12 per cent," Guleriasaid.

As such nearly 65 per cent of HMSI's sales in India come from scooters and Keita Muramatsu, president and CEO ofHMSI, claimed that India contributes roughly about 25 per cent of HMSI's global sales of 17.5 million two-wheelers. Asper data from the Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers (SIAM), HMSI has sold 3.5 million two-wheelers duringApril to January 2015-16.

Gujarat roughly accounts for nearly 10 per cent of HMSI's sales and is a key market for the company, and nearly 40per cent of all two wheelers sold in Gujarat are scooters.

Speaking on the occasion, Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel said that as a member of legislative assembly fromMandal in 1998, she had seen this zone languish without proper infrastructure, roads and even agriculture. "With thesecompanies setting up plants here, it has brought about a huge difference to the area. I saw several young ITI pass outsworking at the site during my plant visit," she said adding that the state government has urged companies to adopt In-dustrial Training Institutes (ITIs) to develop industry-ready youth.

Cumulatively HMSI has invested Rs 6,000 crore in its Indian operations so far, and by the end of this fiscal the figurewould touch Rs 7,400 crore as the fourth plant comes into operation. HMSI started production in India from 2001 (Mane-sar, Haryana). In 2011, the second plant came up at Tapukara, Rajasthan, followed by Narsapura facility in Karnataka in2013, taking the total installed capacity to 4.6 million units pa.

Source: Business Standard

Honda starts world's largest scooterplant in Gujarat

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WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> TRADE NEWS


Indian, Israeli firms join hands for defenceAbout 25 Indian and 100 Israeli firms will come together later this month for a unique business seminar on defence andsecurity in Israel.

The seminar, organised jointly by SIBAT, theIsraeli defence ministry, the International De-fence Cooperation Directorate and Ficci will takeplace on February 21-25, and will mainly focuson increasing collaborations and JVs betweenthe MSME ministry on both sides.

The seminar will highlight the huge potentialto cooperate under PM Narendra Modi’s ‘Make inIndia’ initiative and will deal with the new ex-pected defence procurement procedure 2016,with a special focus on JVs between industries inIsrael and India. More than 500 business-to-busi-ness meetings are expected to take place duringthe seminar.

Both countries’ defence establishments andindustries have been partnering for many years in various areas. This will be the fourth joint seminar for SIBAT and Ficciin recent years. Another seminar, dedicated to armoured vehicles, is expected to take place in Chennai later this year.

SIBAT director, Brigadier-General (Retired) Mishel Ben Baruch, who will be the keynote speaker at the seminar, said:“In recent years, we have witnessed a growing cooperation between Indian and Israeli defence companies. This coopera-tion demonstrates the warm relations between our two countries... SIBAT, as the directorate responsible for assisting Is-raeli defence companies abroad, is very satisfied and proud to witness this collaboration.”

Source: Business Standard

WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> TRADE NEWS 8


The ministry of railways on Monday signed a MoU with the government of Sweden for technical cooperation, in keeping withminister Suresh Prabhu's promise of getting best international technology along with investment.

The main objective of the MoU, signed by Sweden's ministry of enterprise and innovation, is cooperation between the twocountries to promote efficiency and sustainability and achieve concrete results with regard to bilateral trade, investment, re-search and technology transfer.

Both countries will also work towards benchmarking policy development, regulations, organisation and specific character-istics for their respective railways.

The MoU also includes exchange of knowledge, technical expertise, innovation, technology, sustainable solutions and re-search.

A railway spokesperson said India would gain from the cooperation, especially in freight operations in cold regions, tiltingcoaches/trains, capacity allocation (time tabling) and optimisation of maintenance and improved freight/combination traffic.

The two countries also agreed to cooperate in aspects of training for railway engineers and managers. The MoU will remain in force for five years from the date of signing. It can be extended for another five years with the writ-

ten consent of both sides. It was signed by Girish Pillai, adviser, infrastructure, on behalf of railways ministry, and Oscar Stenstrom, state secretary

on behalf of Sweden. Source: The Economic Times

India, Sweden Sign MoU for Railways Cooperation

WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> SECTORAL NEWS9


Private sector manufacturers have an opportunity to pick up a 25% share of defence production, said A.K. Gupta, secre-tary, department of defence production, ministry of defence, on Tuesday.

“Around 25% of the defence PSU (public sector undertaking) turnover can be off-loaded to the private sector, and theministry has already delicensed 60-70% of the production,” he said, speaking at a session on defence at the Make inIndia Week convention in Mumbai. Public sector undertakings in defence sector have a cumulative turnover of aboutRs.50,000 crore, he said.

According to Gupta, the government has identified 25 projects that it plans to throw open to the industry, adding thatthe defence ministry has also simplified export procedures and eliminated licensing bottlenecks.

Last month, the defence ministry had approved key policy changes to give priority to locally-made defence equipmentand fund private sector research and development in defence. The Defence Acquisition Council had approved changes toDefence Procurement Procedure (DPP) to introduce a new category called Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manu-factured (IDDM) equipment. Under the new category, it will be mandatory for 40% of the content to be sourced locally.

DAC also revised the so-called defence offset clause, which will now be applied to contracts of more than Rs.2,000crore instead of current Rs.300 crore, thereby removing a hurdle to foreign firms eyeing the Indian market.

Currently, the DPP requires that any foreign arms manufacturer securing an order worth more than Rs.300 crorefrom India to source components worth 30% of the value of the order from India.

The offsets opportunity is expected to be worth $15 billion in the next 10-15 years, assuming that several proposedpurchases are completed on time, according to consulting firm KPMG.

A new defence procurement policy, or DPP, that will give priority to the indigenously made defence products andboost the Make in India initiative will be ready by April, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said Monday.

For more than 15 years, India has tried to draw the private sector into defence production. But domestic defence man-ufacturing is still dominated by the defence public sector undertakings and the Ordnance Factories Board, which to-gether have an 80-90% share.

Local manufacturing of defence equipment is at the heart of the Make in India programme too, but India continues toimport nearly 60% of its defence equipment.

Source: Livemint

Govt opens up 25% share of defence production to private firms

WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> SECTORAL NEWS

Nitin Gadkari unveils grand plan for logisticshubs and portsMinister of Roads and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday announced policies for developing logistics hubs using 350ring roads; development of 2,000 ports along 14,000 km of coast and introduction of e-tolling across 360 toll plazas.

Gadkari told reporters at the Make in India Week the money was not a problem in rolling out the project but issues re-lating to the system needed to be speedily sorted. The minister also said he hoped the finance minister would allocateRs 65,000 crore for roads, highways, ports and shipping inthe coming Budget from the present Rs 45,000 crore.

On the logistic hub, Gadkari said the objective was toreduce logistics cost (currently 18 per cent of the total). Itwas eight per cent in China and eight to 10 per cent in Eu-ropean countries. “The proposed logistic hubs will housegodowns, storages, pre-cooling centres, cold storages andresidential units. They will be spread over 2,000 to 3,000acres along the 350 ring roads,” he said.

Besides, Gadkari said his ministry had firmed up planfor developing of 2,000 ports in five years. “The tenderswill be issued by the end of 2016 for the Wadhavan (Maha-rashtra), Colachel (Tamil Nadu) and Sagar (West Bengal)ports. This apart, the ministry will spend Rs 18,000 crore on the expansion of 12 ports.”

Funds won’t be a problem, he said. Government undertakings Shipping Corporation of India, Dredging Corporation andCochin Shipyards together posted yearly profit of Rs 6,000 crore, and would contribute. The rest would be raised frombanks, financial institutions and through multiple instruments.

On the introduction of e-tolling, Gadkari said it would be introduced at 360 toll plazas on the national highways. Thiswould help avoid manual toll payment. A company of two banks and a government undertaking has been formed for thepurpose of e-toll collection.

Further, Gadkari said his ministry has taken 21 decisions to expedite the development of roads and highways acrossthe country. “The number of stressed projects have been drastically brought down to 41 projects from 384 projectsworth Rs 3.80 lakh crore in May 2014, when the BJP-led government took over. Now, only seven projects worth Rs20,000 crore are stressed ones.”

According to Gadkari, road projects worth Rs 1.52 lakh crore would be launched after March-April.Source: Business Standard

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WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> NEWS ROUND UP11


Narendra Modi launches Make in IndiaWeek; vows no retrospective taxLaunching the largest-ever manufacturing summit Make In India Week in Mumbai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sat-urday said the government is swiftly working towards a transparent and predictable tax regime to make the country aglobal manufacturing hub.

Addressing the largest business exhibition attended by heads of state, foreign delegates and industrial captains, Modisaid the country will not resort to retrospective taxation.

“I have been saying that this century isAsia’s century. My advice to you is to MakeIndia your center; if you want this century to beyour century,” Modi said citing openness of theeconomy and willing of the government tomake necessary course corrections in the pol-icy.党党This is the best time ever to be in India;

And it is even better to Make in India,” Modisaid.

The prime minister emphasized that it is notthe time for incremental changes but thecountry needs quantum jump.

Modi said the government is trying to re-move the bottlenecks that were affecting investments and growth.

“We have carried out a number of corrections on the taxation front. We have said that we will not resort to retrospec-tive taxation. And I repeat this commitment once again. We are also swiftly working towards making our tax regimetransparent, stable and predictable,” Modi said.

The Make In India week will conclude on 18 February.Make in India is the current government’s flagship initiative, launched by the prime minister in September 2014, to en-

courage international companies to manufacture their goods in India. Make in India Week will be the flagship event toprovide greater momentum to the Make in India initiative, and to showcase to the world the achievements of the nation inthe manufacturing sector.

Make In India week is being celebrated at a time when India’s factory output contracted for the second month in a rowin December. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) shrank 1.3% in December led by manufacturing after a 3.4% con-traction in November.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its monetary policy review on 2 February, said the near-term outlook for industrialactivity may be constrained by adverse base effects in the fourth quarter and still weak exports, although a pick-up incorporate profitability on the back of declining input costs may provide an offset.

However, Modi was convinced about the prospects of the economic growth.The prime minister pointed out that the current government believes in minimum government and maximum gover-

nance and the states have also started making policy corrections for Make In India.Modi expected that India will end the current financial year with well over 7% gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

He also cited foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to have risen by 40% under his government.

WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> NEWS ROUND UP

“India is blessed with three Ds. These are: Democracy, Demography and Demand. To this, we have added the fourth Dthat is Deregulation. Today’s India is this four dimensional India. Our judicial systems are independent and time tested.

You will not find all these elements in any other country,” Modi said.In 2014-15, India contributed 12.5% of global growth and its contribution to global growth is 68% higher than its share

of the world economy, Modi said while pitching the case for India.Inviting industrial captains to invest in India, Modi said: “These are very good signs. I would like to give our industry

some friendly advice. Don’t wait. Don’t Relax.”Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the Make in India initiative has set off competitive federalism. “But

this is a healthy and fair competition and it will further lead to complimentary federalism,” Fadnavis said.Noted economist and former member of the planning commission Narendra Jadhav said the prime minister made a

spirited pitch for India. “He was expected to make a spirited salesmanship for India and that is what he did. Though youcould find fault with the numbers he gave indeed some of the numbers he quoted are actually incorrect the spirit of opti-mism was there and that is good for India,” Jadhav said.

Source: Livemint

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WEEKLYECONOMIC BULLETIN >> NEWS ROUND UP

India's biggest manufacturing promotional till date at home - the Make in India Week - concluded here on Thursday withinvestment commitments of over Rs.15 lakh crore ($220 billion), the organisers said.

"The numbers are in. INR 15,20,000 Cr investment already committed at #MakeInIndia Week," the event's main organ-iser, the union Department Of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) tweeted.

"INR 1,05,000 crore of business enquirers generated during #MakeInIndia Week," another tweet said.Enumerating the scale of the event, a separate tweet said: "8,90,000 visitors8,245 B2B, B2G and G2G meetings 1,245 national and international speakers 215 exhibitors 102 nations.:Addressing the event's closing ceremony, DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant said: "Maharashtra will become gateway of

India", testifying to the success of the event held in the state capital.India Inc likely to see 10% pay hike, says studyNew Delhi: India Inc is set to witness an average salary increase of around 10.3% this year, with sectors such as e-

commerce, life sciences and media receiving maximum hikes, revealed a survey.E-commerce companies and startups will offer the highest projected salary hike of 15.6%, followed by life sciences at

11.6% and media at 11.2%, said the Aon Hewitt study that analyzed data across 700 companies.In contrast, sectors such as telecom services, metals and financial institutions are set to offer the lowest projected

salary hikes of 9.8%, 9.3% and 8.8% respectively."With this year's numbers we are seeing a confirmation of our view that Indian companies are taking very clear steps

to arrest the steady increase in compensation budgets," said Anandorup Ghose, partner at Aon Hewitt India. "The lowerinflation rates in the economy have also helped companies in deciding on the reduced salary increases without creatingtoo much of a disruption in the lives of employees."

Companies across industries continue to take a cautious stance and are not going for aggressive pay increases, saidthe survey. In many cases, industries have taken a marginal cut in their overall budgets as compared to 2015 actualspends.

The survey also revealed a new trend of plateauing of 'double-digit' salary increases in India. For instance, 2007 and2008 saw salary increases of 15.1% and 13.1%, while 2014 and 2015 witnessed hikes of 10.4% each. It is a sign of mar-ket maturity and a cautious approach to stay competitive in the APAC region.

The attrition rate in the country is dropping. At 16.3%, it is the lowest that corporate India has observed since the 2008global financial crisis. While attrition was controlled at a broader level, key talent attrition increased from 5.9% in 2014to 7.3% in 2015.

Organizations are increasingly developing separate retention plans and policies for their top talent. While rewardscontinue as a retention tool to ring-fence top talent, programmes around leadership opportunities and coaching, over-seas assignments are fast gaining prominence, said the survey.

Source: The Times of India

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'Make in India Week' gets Rs.15 lakh croreinvestment commitment

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