India has become home to the highest number of billionaires in Asia, according to an American publishing and media company Forbes Magazine’s 2007 rankings of the world’s richest people. The country added 14 new billionaires during the last one year to take the total tally in the list at 36, compared to Japan’s 24 billionaires. These 36 Indian billionaires have a combined wealth of $191 billion. The two brothers, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, heading the two hived-off businesses of India’s diversified business conglomerate Reliance Industries have joined London-based richest Indian Lakshmi Mittal, the Chairman of Arcelor Mittal, largest steel producer in the world in the list of top 20 billionaires. With this, India is second only to the U.S. that leads the top 20 list with five Americans. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of India’s largest private sector company Reliance Industries Ltd, moved up to 14th rank from 56th, with his net worth increasing to $20.1 billion from $8.5 billion. His younger brother Anil Ambani, Chairman of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), also made a quantum jump to 18th position from 104th, as his net worth went up to $18.2 billion from $5.7 billion. Azim Premji, Chairman of India’s third largest software exporter Wipro Ltd, missed to enter the top 20 list with just one rank, although he inched up four places from the 25th position in the previous year. His net worth went up to $17.1 billion from $13.3 billion. Forbes has done the rankings based on the figures available on February 09, 2007.

The annual budget for 2007-08 has placed Infrastructure and rural development as the top priority for the Indian government. The government will increase its spending on infrastructure including ports, power generation and roads by 40% to $30.2 billion (Rs.1.34 trillion) in 2007-08. The buoyancy in the foreign investment has also continued in the current fiscal year, as the foreign direct investment (FDI) has been estimated to reach at $12.5 billion during April 2006-January 2007. Pursuing the economic reform agenda, India has moved ahead in the direction of reducing its fiscal and revenue deficit as per the targets set earlier. For the year 2007-08, government has projected the fiscal deficit at 3.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) compared with 3.7% in 2006-07, and revenue deficit at 1.5% of GDP compared with 2% in 2006-07, according the annual budget for 2007-08. Although the Indian Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram expressed concern about the rising inflation in his budget speech, he said that the average inflation rate will be in the range of 5.2% to 5.4% in 2006/07.

Lalita Gupte, Non-Executive Chairperson of ICICI Venture Funds Management, one of the largest private equity firms in India and former Joint Managing Director of India’s largest private sector bank, ICICI Bank, has been proposed as new board member of the world’s largest mobile phone maker Nokia Oyj. The Finnish company has proposed the names of Lalita Gupte, chief executive of business software provider SAP AG Henning Kagermann, and current Nokia Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as the new board members at the shareholders’ meeting on May 03, 2007. Gupte is also a board member of Bharat Forge Ltd, the second largest forging company in the world, business process outsourcing (BPO) services Firstsource Solutions (formerly ICICI OneSource) and India’s leading pumps manufacturer Kirloskar Brothers. Recently, Tata Group, India’s largest private sector diversified conglomerate Chairman Ratan Tata was nominated on the board of the world’s biggest aluminum maker Alcoa.

India has attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) worth more than $2 billion during December 2006, highest ever inflow in to the country in a single month, compared with $350 million in December 2005. The FDI inflow during the nine-month period of April-December 2006 has been estimated at $9.3 billion, a rise of 166% compared with $3.5 billion in the same period last fiscal year. The Indian government is now hopeful of attracting more than $12 billion during the financial year 2006-07, as against $5.5 billion in 2005-06. Importantly, the manufacturing sector has been a prominent beneficiary of this FDI inflow. During December 2006, industries such as textiles, ceramics and chemicals received large FDI inflows.

India is expected to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) worth $1 billion from the U.S. in the fiscal year 2006-07, according to an estimate by the U.S. ambassador to India David C. Mulford. It will be a quantum jump from the usual investment level of $300 million - $400 million a year from the U.S., which has been India’s largest single foreign investor for the past ten years.

Indo-Gold Mines Pvt Ltd, a mining joint venture 70% owned by Australian firm Indo-Gold Limited and 30% owned by Indian partner Metal Mining India Pvt Ltd, has discovered significant gold deposits in Banswara district of the India state of Rajasthan. Brisbane-based Indo-Gold has described the deposits as world-class, and hopes to start production in four years. The annual yield from the mines has been estimated at about eight tons. The joint venture company was allocated 2,135 square kilometers of land by the government of India, under a reconnaissance permit. Foreign investment in exploration and mining activities will get a boost with this discovery.

India’s largest utility vehicle and tractor maker Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd (M&M) has formed a consortium with Japan’s Nissan Motor Company Ltd and Renault SA of France. M&M will have 50% stake in the JV, while the other two partners will own the remaining equity. The consortium will invest about $900 million (Rs.4,000 crore) for setting up a manufacturing facility in Chennai for passenger cars and utility vehicles. The manufacturing facility with a production capacity of 400,000 units per annum will roll out its first vehicle produced in the second half of 2009.