Something big is happening

There is now little doubt that the economic boom in India is unprecedented and is reaching well beyond the sectors and areas that normally benefit from these things. These three stories, all of them in today's newspaper, illustrate the point well .

The first one notes how an Indian derivatives exchange (which itself is less than three years old) has become the second largest global trader of Natural Gas just three months after introducing the contract.

The second story notes how India's largest private sector bank which already employs 150,000 people expects to hire another 40,000 in the next three to five years to meet anticipated demand.

In the third story, a joint venture between a US company and an Indian Venture Capital Company is planning to invest over $1 billion in next 8-10 years to develop commercial and residential properties in the country .

These are big stories with big numbers, yet every day sees three or four similar announcements.

It does not take a genius to work out that something big and unprecedented is happening in the Indian economy and it will have important implications for all of us.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd has emerged the second largest Natural Gas Exchange globally, next to New York Mercentile Exchange.

The Exchange launched its Natural Gas futures for trading on July 10.

Within two months of its launch, the traded lots have reached over 5.46 lakhs, which is 25 per cent of NYMEX volume, the exchnage said in a release in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The number of participants has also increased to 514 per day in August from 250 per day in July while the daily average turnover of natural gas futures at MCX platform has increased to Rs 436.91 crore (Rs 4.36 billion) in August from Rs 103.30 crore (Rs 1.03 billion) a month ago.

ICICI Bank, India's second largest bank financial services provider, plans to employ up to 40,000 people annually over the next three to five years to meet the expected demand from the nation's booming banking arena, reports the Financial Times.
In an interview with the UK-based financial daily, K V Kamath, the chief executive and managing director of the financial giant, said that the bank would about 40,000 people a year because of the robust economic activity in India that is opening up new vistas for the banking and insurance sectors.
ICICI Bank currently employs 150,000 people.
The problem of talent shortage that faces the nation's infotech sector is also plaguing the banking, finance, insurance and manufacturing sectors too. The supply of talent is just unable to keep pace with the Indian economy's growth rate, causing a major shortage, said the daily.
FT said that India's banking industry has been registering at double-digit revenue growth over the past few years driven mostly by a boom in the consumer finance sector, following a rise in people's purchasing power.
Meanwhile, ICICI Bank has tied up with IT training company, NIIT, to set up a financial services training institute. NIIT chairman Rajendra Pawar, FT said, feels that India's banking sector alone might employ about 600,000 people over the next five years.
ICICI Bank has offered to recruit all the students of the first batch as officers upon successful completion of the programme, it added.

TSI Ventures (India), a real estate joint venture between US-based Tishman Speyer and ICICI Venture, is planning to invest over $1 billion (about Rs 4,600 crore) in next 8-10 years to develop commercial and residential properties in the country.
The company is currently in talks to acquire land in seven prime cities - Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore for its planned projects in India, Prakash Gurbaxani, CEO, TSI Ventures told PTI.
"We will overall look at doing one or two projects in each of the seven cities that we are focusing on in next 8-10 years. The investment will be in excess of one billion dollars," Gurbaxani said.
TSI has already announced it's first project to develop 1.5 million square feet of office space near Hyderabad at a cost of $100 million (approx Rs 460 crore).