SEZ was originally conceived on the premises that it will be like an “Island of Excellence” with world class infrastructure available to the user at globally competitive prices. It was aimed to assist both Indian entrepreneurs as well as global investors wanting to set up their manufacturing and services bases inIndia.
Sahara Infrastructure and Housing, of late being in the news for market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) rap for mopping up Rs 17,400 crore through debentures and delayed project completion has now announced another 68 projects within FY 2012 – 13 across India. A statement issued by Sahara claims to introduce 10 lifestyle township projects, of which 9 will be self sufficient integrated townships under the brand name of ‘Sahara City Homes’ and 1 under the brand name of ‘Sahara Grace’.
The government has also given more time to as many as 37 Special Economic Zone developers, including Navi Mumbai SEZ, DLF Commercial Developers and Tata Consultancy Services, to execute their projects. Five SEZ developers were allowed to surrender their projects as well. But the mounting criticism is now forcing the government to eject non-serious players from SEZ.
“Supertech invites you to invest in a pre-launch project at an attractive discount,” this SMS has been sent at least 5 times within a week. The bulk SMS, however, fails to acknowledge that many of these unsolicited messages are being delivered to the wrong recipients, including media, in front of whom most of the developers deny to pre-launch the projects any more. As a matter of fact, ever since Supreme Court came down heavily on the pre-launch offer of the developers, various states including Haryana have banned such offers.
There was no holistic planning for SEZs to position them strategically for being complementary to each other and serving their own market niches respectively. The Ministry of Commerce that provides in-principle approvals to new SEZs on the basis of pre-feasibility reports being submitted by the respective state governments, soon seem to have lost its monitoring mechanism. Secondly, the SEZ was not synchronized with other schemes for development of specialized industrial parks.
Cushman & Wakefield has appointed Sanjay Dutt as Executive Managing Director, South Asia, Cushman & Wakefield.
In this new position, Sanjay will be responsible for leading Cushman & Wakefield’s India operations along with spearheading the growth strategy for other South Asian markets including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. Sanjay’s key focus would be to manage and augment Cushman & Wakefield’s highly successful India operations and to enhance the firm’s service delivery capabilities to clients.
Jones Lang LaSalle’s markets experts have shared their expectations for the office leasing markets in Asia Pacific in the second quarter of 2012. In those markets that were experiencing office rental declines in previous quarters, the Markets teams are anticipating a slowdown in the rate of decline, for example a three to four percent fall in Grade A office rents this quarter in Hong Kong compared to an actual 6.3 percent decline in the first quarter.
Sahara India Real Estate Corp has blamed the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for taking up the issue of Sahara group of companies mopping up Rs 17,400 crore through debentures and ordered their refund. Sahara has this plea before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Senior counsel Fali Nariman, appearing for Sahara India Real Estate Corp, told the apex court bench of Justice KS Radhakrishnan and Justice JS Khehar that the SEBI took up the matter even though there was no complaint from any investor.
Once seen as very powerful economic tool for catalyzing the growth process during restructure and liberalization of economy, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in India could not replicate the Chinese success story, as assumed. Track2Realty takes a look on the future of SEZs in India as realtors make a beeline to exit or extend the tax haven, and the Government groping for fresh ideas.
The world’s housing markets moved clearly down during the year to the first quarter of 2012, according to the Global Property Guide’s latest house price indices survey. House prices fell in 24 countries, of the 36 countries for which quarterly house price statistics are available, and rose in only 12 countries.