Date:25/10/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/10/25/stories/2005102500811900.htm

Back 2-day IFC meet in Mumbai from Nov 10

Our Bureau

New Delhi , Oct. 24

MR Iyad Malas, Director, South Asia of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), (the private sector lending arm of The World Bank) announced on Monday that a seminar on select emerging markets, "New Markets, New Partners" will be held in Mumbai on November 10-11.

To be chaired by Mr Quentin Peel, International Affairs Editor, Financial Times, it will be attended by the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, and Mr Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry. IFC, which is in the process of facilitating trade and investment between companies in the Southern hemisphere, has organised the seminar so that companies from the region can build contacts.

The seminar will focus on the increasing number of companies in the Southern hemisphere that are building on their success in domestic markets by growing regionally and globally through acquisitions and investments in other emerging markets. According to IFC, there has been a significant increase in South-South trade from $40 billion in 1991-96 to $100 billion in 2000-01.

The main participants will be India, countries from Latin America (mainly Brazil and Mexico), China, Turkey and countries from Africa and Southern Europe.

Of further interest will be case studies of two companies, the Tata group and Brazilian company Marco Polo. Mr Malas said that IFC acts as a facilitator in bringing together various companies and investors to enable them to understand the nature of business in the emerging markets. Speaking about the movement of foreign direct investment, he outlined the main "drivers" as liberalisation, internationalisation of R&D and BPO activity, competitive pressures of locating in cheaper cost of production countries and finally the need to exploit some of the untapped natural resources like oil, gas and steel. Concluding, Mr Malas said that IFC has invested around $400 million in India in the form of equity or debt (loans), with 23 per cent exposure to infrastructure, and hopes to sustain this figure in the near future.