Vibrant Gujarat
Gujarat, home to the 4th Indian Ceramics Exhibition, is the leading industrialised State of India.  It hosts a number of multinational corporations, large private sector companies, strong public sector enterprises and a large number of medium and small scale units.  While hosting 5% of the Indian population, Gujarat contributes 21% of the country’s exports and around 16% of India’s industrial production.

This is the State that is consistently punching above its weight and offers South Asian manufacturers and foreign suppliers an extremely congenial business climate.  The developments of the past few years – a major factor in our having relocated the Indian Ceramics to Ahmedabad – mean that significant moves are going to be seen in the next decade.

The recent Reserve Bank of India report named Gujarat as Number 1 in terms of proposed investments.  It identified Gujarat as having garnered $17.8 billion from 86 projects, which is 25.8% of the total country investments of $69 billion received during 2007.  All this activity has been backed up on a rolling basis by the ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ events.  Held biennially, three such have taken place so far (2003, 2005 and 2007) and have succeeded in securing investment proposals to the tune of $180 billion.

Actual performance in this part of north-western India is matching ambition.  GDP rocketed by 10.33% in the last fiscal year and expectations for the current year are even more bullish – generally pitched at around 11.25%.  In the last 10 years, Gross Domestic State Production has run at an average of 14%.

Naturally, manufacturing chiefs and potential investors look to solid plans on transport, power, and construction, not least the ceramic community for which all these are extremely important.  There has been a construction boom underway here for some time and all the signs are that this will continue.  Hotel, entertainment and retail projects are all on the up as more and more people are attracted to the area.

As an example, the Gujarat government has announced that it will spend $112 million on several special projects which are planned in and around the Ambaji Temple.  The project, just launched, will help promote tourism in the next five years.

Also part of the 11th five-year plan, the State economy will certainly get a shot in the arm from the 11 new ports that are being planned.

Crucially – for Gujarat and for its Ceramic Cluster – the development not only of improved gas supplies but also the construction of new power plants will lead to energy self-sufficiency in the region.  There is certainly excitement at the prospect of significant new gas supplies from the Krishna-Godavari basin, sometimes referred to as India’s ‘North Sea’.

On top of all this, and just up the expressway from where Indian Ceramics is being held in March, is the construction of the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT).  This will sit on a site for which a minimum of 500 acres has already been allocated and will transform the skyline between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.

This global financial and IT services hub will be the first of its kind in India and by very final completion in 2017 will be the centre for not only a massively impressive entrepreneurial, modern city but also 500,000 jobs and 50,000 homes.

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