India set for ‘super-economy’

India has seen huge economic growth in recent years…

The second most populous country on Earth has seen huge economic growth in recent years, casting off outdated images as a third-world country and emerging instead as an industrialised, modern nation with vast potential. In the midst of this, the property market - both commercial and residential - has been booming as businesses grow, investment pours in and a growing middle class seek new homes.

All this, plus continued popular activities such as tourism, make India a good emerging market in which to invest, according to Simon Walker, sales manager of overseas property firm Off Plan International. He said Mumbai and Goa were the best locations of all to buy in, adding: "They are good options because India is an emerging market and also because the country is going to be a super economy in a few years."

Great things on the horizon

Mr Walker stated that it was possible to get a one-bed flat in Mumbai for as little as £15,000, which one might surmise is not bad for a country tipped to grow to be one of the three leading economies in the world.

Eight years ago, investment Bank Goldman Sachs suggested that at an annual growth rate of 5.3 to 6.1 per cent India would be in the top three by 2035, exoticpropertysales.com reported, adding that with growth now up to 9.4 per cent, this target could be reached as early as 2010.

Investors from around the world are pouring funds into India in the expectation that this growth will continue. Rakeen, a property developer from the United Arab Emirates, is one of the latest major investors, launching a joint project with India's Trimex mineral group worth $5 billion (£2.46 billion) to develop commercial and residential property. As long as investment is arriving on that scale, Indian property could be very hot in 2008.