Nov. 2, 2011

Paul Hopkins of Reuters reports that the best hope to boost the western econoimies is to invest in underdeveloped countries. "We need growth. We're not going to get out of this by just cutting deficits," says Tidjane Thiam, the Franco-African engineer who runs Britain's biggest insurer Prudential Plc. in a report to G20 this week.

"The growth curves are just unbelievable. Anything grows at 20 percent per annum which means it will be 10 times bigger in 10 years. You don't get that in the West unless you are Facebook."

The big change he wants to drive through is to make it safer and easier to invest in poorer nations by institutionalizing what is often already being done on a local, project-by-project basis.

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Until recently, Bollywood had few legitimate sources of film finance; money came from underground sources with the heavy strings attached. Piracy was rampant. The star system created a financially precarious situation. And marketing was nonexistent.

According to the "FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2011," Bollywood is finally seeing the fruits of corporatization.

"Corporatization has helped build scale and [give] sustainability to the business," Anil Arjun, CEO of Anil Ambani Group company Reliance Mediaworks, told Indian business daily The Economic Times.

Following the Hollywood's franchise method, Bollywood has opened up box-office sales for revenue with ancillary revenue streams such as in-cinema advertising, sale of cable and satellite rights, licensing and merchandising.

With the deregularization of film production, exhibition and distribution, most of the major Hollywood studios are in the country in one form or another. The number of requests from foreign crews for shooting films in India has gone up greatly.  As a result,  Indian firms are making significant investments in infrastructure facilities.

Download the complete 182 page report prepared by FICCI & KPMG titled "Hitting the High Notes" here.

While India's $1.7 trillion economy expanded 7.7 percent 2Q, India’s central bank raised interest rates to 8.25% from 8%. This is the 12th time since last year, India has raised interest rates. The main issue is the rising inflation.

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$9 billion post-harvest losses in 2009.  40% wastage of food in a country like India is huge.  With growing population, more mouths to feed, India can't afford to neglect the food sector.

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An interesting article, by WSJ, which certainly presents a cautionary look at India's growth with respect to its rising inflation.

My personal thought behind why increase in the interest rates has not been able to control the inflation rates is the unorganized sectors in India.

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