The Economic Survey, while recognising the importance of the services sector (it accounts for 59 per cent of gross domestic product), has raised concern over the second largest economic activity–housing & real estate. Three months after the government rolled back its decision to allow 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, the survey referred to it as a major challenge before the sector.
Pranay Vakil: Let’s start by introducing ourselves. I am Pranay Vakil, Chairman of Knight Frank India. We are a brokerage and consultancy group, positioned as second in the business.
The recently tabled Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011 in Parliament is meant to replace the 117-year-old Land Acquisition Bill of 1894.
Ahmedabad stands out as a city that weathered the market slowdown most smartly and the property market of the city was the first in the country that showed signs of recovery by June 2009 itself. Since then realty in Ahmedabad is back and booming, with nearly 35% appreciation.
In contrast to what was been witnessed in many of the more volatile cities over the last couple of years, Chennai’s residential property market saw steady growth in terms of pricing, demand and supply. Chennai’s residential property market is predominantly end user driven, and this fact did a lot to sustain consistent absorption throughout 2011.
The Company Law Board (CLB) has asked real estate company Unitech to decide by Monday if it wanted to buy its joint venture partner Telenor’s 67 per cent stake in telecom company Uninor or sell its 33 per cent stake to the Norwegian firm.
Tata Housing has launched its first pan-India retail brand – GoodLife, specially designed to bring mall culture to urban localities where there are no malls.
Despite a gloomy global outlook, foreign direct investment (FDI) clocked a 31 per cent growth to $27.5 billion during January-December 2011 period. FDI inflows for January-December 2010 stood at $21 billion.
Fearing share price manipulation with the help of certain ‘independent’ research reports onIndian companies, market watchdog Sebi may soon bring all kinds of research analysts under its regulatory ambit.
CREDAI has stressed the importance of a devising a new scheme like tax holiday to generate stock under affordable housing category. It demands that all projects with tenements below 80 sq meter in Mumbai and Delhi, and 1000 sq meter in other cities, could be exempted from taxes.