India: Big market, but foreign investment is growing slowly

Abstract

Between 1991 and March 1995, foreign chemical investment in India totaled only $600 million. During the same period, foreigners invested billions of dollars in the chemical and petrochemical industry of the tiny city-state of Singapore. India may well be the world's most promising consumer market after China, but the enthusiasm so far has been translated very slowly into action by foreign chemical firms. But petrochemical industry is clearly on the move. Indian companies will be multiplying by a factor of five the size of their country's petrochemical industry between 1996 and 2001. These are some of the observations that can be gathered from India's Petrochemical Industry 1997, a new report by Mitsubishi Chemical's Tokyo-based subsidiary Martech Inc., a firm that primarily produces research material on the petrochemical industries of Asian countries. The 700-page English-Japanese volume is designed to be a reference for the increasing number of businesspeople considering getting involved in Ind...