“With 1.2 billion consumers, India is a country where there are tremendous opportunities for Canadian businesses of all sizes,” said Minister of International Trade Ed Fast.

Rana Sarkar, President and CEO, Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC), further explaining the scope of Canadian businesses in a larger perspective said, “India’s big markets of scale offer stable growth in our lifetime, adding millions to the middle class every month and will bring billions of people into cities and into the global economy within the next decade. They are building infrastructure in years that it took centuries to build elsewhere. India is particularly interesting for Canadians because it is growing at 8 to 10 per cent a year largely off the back of domestic consumer demand- not the government.”

With a booming economy, and a demand for trade, India is now in the eyes of Canadian consumer industries. This was not the case even a decade ago, simply because “India wasn’t there yet, and, more importantly, you could get faster returns in less complex markets closer to home. Even then there were trailblazers, such as Sun Life, Bombardier, Scotiabank and the EDC, who have been established in India for decades. Law firms like Bennett Jones, Torys and Heenan Blaikie have spent years building A-grade networks and are now key connectors. But in recent months we’re seeing a dramatic uptick in interest. Cameco, AECL and the rest of the nuclear supply chain are moving into the market now that we have the nuclear agreement in place. In technology, RIM and Open Text are becoming key players. Brookfield, the CPP and CDP have all made investments, and BMO has established a strong India Practice,” added Sarkar.

Me’shel Gulliver Bélanger, spokeswoman for International Trade Canada, while expanding on the trade figures between the two countries, said, “Canadian merchandize exports to India have increased by 92.2% since 2005, reaching nearly to 2.1 billion in 2010. In 2010, the stock of two-way direction investment was over $7 billion.”

The experiences of those companies that have started engaging in business with India have been very good, according to Amardeep Gill, CMA manger, International relations at the BC Premier’s office. “English is widely spoken as India used to be a British colony like Canada was. Some of the ways of doing business are different here so companies have a little bit of a learning curve, but the experience is more or less positive,” said Gill.

With many Canadian provinces striving to develop their own initiatives with India, do B.C. businesses stand a chance to carve their own niche in the Indian market? Contrary to the fact that increasing number of technology, trade, innovation, higher education, and research initiatives have been signed between India and B.C., the trade volumes between the province and B.C. are not very high as compared to other provinces.

According to 2010 Stats B.C., over 75 per cent of Canadian exports to India originate in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec while B.C. only accounts for seven per cent ($135 million).
But efforts are on to increase the scope of trade between B.C and India especially the coming years look very promising.

Anita Huberman, CEO Surrey Board of Trade, spoke of an upcoming clean energy workshop at the Globe 2012 conference in Vancouver. The conference will bring 15-20 clean technology businesses from India and pair them up with Canadian clean technology businesses in the hopes of getting a working trade relationship going. Huberman also spoke about the importance of making an on the ground commitment in India. “When we go on trade missions to India, were showing that there are businesses that come with us who have an interest. Canada is seen as more of a visible presence in doing business,” she said.

Though this might be true, there are areas that B.C. companies are lacking in, which could be improved on. Over 83 percent of BC companies are small and medium sized enterprises (SME). A key issue for these SMEs is having the appropriate support to alleviate any uncertainties on where to start and any misperceptions that they can’t do business globally if they aren’t a large business.

Although not for profit organizations like the Surrey Board of trade may be a simpler medium to do this through, the government needs to pay more attention as well, especially in regards to financial support. SME budgets are constrained by a lack of financial resources. They will not be able to forge on the ground commitments in India if they lack the money and time to travel. “Canada as a whole has to adopt a very robust strategy to help SMEs get access to market; they need more information and travel funding for companies”, said Gill. To play the trade game, BC additionally needs to tap into sectors that have potential to grow further.

Seeing that agriculture is a third of surreys land base, it would be appropriate to consider in combination with clean energy as sustainable food crops become increasingly important. Film has a lot of potential too; it makes sense for BC to focus on because we have a large Indian Diaspora. We have to leverage on the connections we already have.

(Angela Bower and Fatimah Nahar are SFU students and part of B.C.-India Initiative project)
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India will begin allowing 100 percent ownership for foreign single brand companies in India from the previous 51 percent, which are expected to give a big boost  to major brands such as Ikea and Starbucks (which is rumoured to be opening its first café in Mumbai next month, after signing an MOU with Tata Coffee Ltd.). Major companies like Ikea and Starbucks will put a spotlight on India and attract more large Canadian Companies.

Rana Sarkar, President & CEO, Canada-India Business Council points out, “This reform, which requires the use of a smaller Indian Company for at least 30 % procurement, has already shown positive economic potential in India. Pantaloon, one of India’s largest retailers’ stocks soar 10 percent after the announcement was made. The hope is this reform will allow liberalization in the Indian market and potentially revolutionize Indian supply chains and lower consumer prices.”

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The First Annual Canada-India Business Forum organized last month by the Canada-India Business Council in India (Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata) and Dubai lent fresh impetus to ongoing business engagement between the two sides.

The Forum brought together over 140 senior executives, government officials and academics from both countries including Stockwell Day, PC former Canadian Minister of International Trade, Christy Clark, the Premier of British Columbia, David Denison, CEO, Canada Pension Plan, among others.

India’s infrastructure sector was a key focus, said C-IBC president and CEO Rana Sarkar.

Amitabh Kant, CEO, Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, expressed India’s needs to build over 200 new cities, with Canadian firms well-placed to participate.

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India’s declared “decade of innovation” is fueling change–and steering Simon Fraser University Beedie business student Fahad Yasin’s future.

Working in Mumbai as one of 10 SFU students benefitting from the BC-India Exchange and Mobility Initiative created in June, Yasin hopes to play a role in driving the change that will advance the country over the next 10 years.

“On a high level, it is widely known that India has a demand for change–and on a micro level I have experienced personally the inefficiencies faced here–the power outages, unsanitary water, congested transportation, and so much more,” he writes in his blog, www.thedarkhorsejourney.com.

“Seeing all of this at the same time was initially overwhelming, but I often come back to the reason I am here and know that in some way I am helping create change.”

Yasin, who met this week with SFU President Andrew Petter and Beedie Business School Dean Danny Shapiro during their visit to India, is working as a business development analyst with the Canada-India Business Council via the Surrey Board of Trade.

The job involves investigating joint venture opportunities for B.C.-based clean energy companies and those in the Mumbai region. Yasin is working with SFU student Dulce Nunez to identify and match organizations with mutual interests in developing new business partnerships.

The Vancouver-born student, who resides in New Westminster, is aiming for a career in international trade or strategy consulting.

“What is most interesting is adapting to the culture while simultaneously learning how to conduct business in a entirely new manner,” says Yasin, who earlier spent five months at Denmark’s Copenhagen Business School as an international exchange student.

Among other SFU students completing work terms in India under the new initiative, which is funded by Western Economic Diversification (WED) Canada:

• Cho Wang of Burnaby and Vijay Raju of Surrey are business students investigating joint venture opportunities for StoryPanda and other BC-based video game companies, in relation to the cell phone gaming market in the New Delhi region.
• Bernard Ho (an SFU grad) and Nadar Moradi, both from Vancouver and SFU Surrey’s Mechatronics Systems Engineering (MSE) program, are at Luminous Industry’s research and development facility in Gurgaon. The term is a first step in a potential long-term partnership to establish a collaborative R&D program at SFU and an R&D company in Surrey to develop low-cost clean energy solutions for emerging markets.
• Daniel Zwart (SFU grad, from New West) and Sumangal Malhotra (Surrey) are also Mechatronics students who’ll be working with Sutlej Motors bus facility in Punjab, another first step towards a potential R&D partnership on developing clean energy for buses using fuel cell technologies.
• Engineering science graduate student Sumanpreet Chhina (of Surrey) has just arrived at Shobhit University in New Delhi, to work on a collaborative project that involves an SFU developed biomedical device and technology that helps detect, diagnosis and allow appropriate treatment of infectious diseases in infants in India.

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MUMBAI: Canadian pension funds are interested in investing in the infrastructure projects in the country, provided regulatory hurdles are addressed by the government.

“Big pension funds from Canada are interested to invest in infrastructure sector in India. But, the concerns relating to regulatory issues should be addressed by the government,” Canada-India Business Council vice-chairman Peter Sutherland said here over the weekend.The recent steps such as allowing FIIs to invest in infrastructure are steps in the right direction, he said.

The government plans to invest around USD 1 trillion in the infrastructure in the next five year plan beginning April. The government expects to garner around 50 percent of the proposed investment from private sector through public-private partnership projects. Referring to sectors, Sutherland said Canadian investors are looking at all infra sectors including ports, roads and power.

He also said segments in services sector like education, financial services, research and development are of interest to his investors.

“We are also looking at collaboration in the hydrocarbon, oil and gas along with other conventional energy segments with India,” he said, without divulging the amount of investment.

Last month, the government has taken some measures like raising FII investment in infrastructure sector along with lowering of lock-in period to attract more investment in the infrastructure sector.

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NEW DELHI—As Ray Newal signed the papers giving his Toronto company funding to build its business in India, he could be forgiven if he didn’t appear overjoyed. After all, the 35-year-old Canadian was in hospital.

Delirious from migraine headaches and a 104-degree fever, Newal had collapsed on the roadside as he tried to flag down a rickshaw. Doctors told him he was suffering from typhoid, caused by contaminated food or water.

Despite feeling ill — “I think brain damage occurs at 105,” Newal says — he endorsed the documents from his hospital bed in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital.
Ten months later, Newal has completely recovered and has a spring in his step, thanks to his company’s prospects. It’s tough to overstate the opportunities for new business in India nowadays.

Though Newal’s Jigsee Inc. is still a start-up with 25 employees, the Toronto resident has big plans for the subcontinent. Jigsee’s software allows customers to download high-quality video on basic, entry-level cellphones.

Eventually, Newal says Jigsee will turn a profit selling ads that appear before users access music videos, soap operas and movies on their phones.
India’s economy has surged 8 per cent a year over the past decade, the second-fastest rate of growth in the world after China. At that pace, it could become the world’s third-largest economy by 2030.

Gleaming shopping malls are sprouting up across Indian cities, offering customers everything from frozen yogurt to hand-tailored clothing. Highways and overpasses are being built at a rapid clip — the government is in the midst of a 15-year plan to pave 65,000 kilometres of new four- and six-lane roads — although it’s having a hard time keeping pace with demand.

Over the past 20 years, the population in India’s cities has grown by 120 million and now accounts for 30 per cent of the country’s population. Over the next 20 years, the number of Indians in urban centres is expected to grow by another 250 million to 40 per cent.

As aspirational rural Indians move to the cities, this country’s burgeoning middle class is snapping up motorcycles and cars faster than roads can be built.
Ford plans eight new models exclusively for the Indian market by 2015 and has just built an engine plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu that can churn out 200,000 cars per year. The North American auto dealer sold a record 83,887 units in India in 2010, up from 29,488 a year earlier. Luxury vehicle makers are similarly swooning over India. BMW’s sales in 2010 were up 73 per cent over the previous year, while Mercedes Benz sales rocketed ahead 80 per cent.

Even the nascent Indian video game market is on a tear. Sony has sold 91,000 PlayStation3 units and is working to develop games specifically for the Indian market, taking advantage of a domestic high-tech industry that brings down the cost of building a new title to $3 million from at least $8 million in North America.

Until recently, corporate Canada’s presence in India has been dominated by a handful of large players, including Sun Life Insurance, Bombardier, CAE Inc. and SNC Lavalin.

Sun Life, partnering with a local company, has sold 2.2 million life insurance policies. Bombardier has sold about 30 business jets and in 2010 announced a contract to sell 15 Q400 turboprop jets to Spicejet, one of India’s growing domestic carriers. The Montreal company has also sold 424 subway cars to New Delhi’s new metro.
Engineering firm SNC Lavalin consults on numerous hydro projects throughout India, and CAE’s flight simulators are teaching a new generation of Indian pilots how to fly. CAE also has close ties to India’s military and produced a tank-training system.

The Canadian government is anxious to build closer ties to India. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he wants to triple trade between Canada and India to $15 billion by 2015. Diplomats are expected to meet again in New Delhi in November to continue talks on a free-trade pact.And increasingly, executives and diplomats say, smaller Canadian companies are taking a chance on India.

The draw is especially attractive for firms in sectors such as education, innovation and clean-tech, after India announced it would spend $20 billion over the next decade to build 20,000 megawatts of solar energy capacity.

“You can’t afford to stay out of India saying it’s too complicated because everyone else, all your competition, is looking at that market,” says Rana Sarkar, president of the Canada-India Business Council. “It’s not just an aggressive play any more. Now it’s defensive. It’s a chance to get into a market that’s going to be doing lending internationally, making decisions at the International Monetary Fund level, influencing international security issues, and just taking a much bigger seat at the table.”
VBine Energy, based in Saskatchewan and founded in 2005, has spent months exploring India over the past year. The company develops energy-producing wind-powered turbines that harness updrafts for energy and are fixed vertically atop cellphone towers. The turbines eliminate the need for diesel generators and since many cellphone towers in India are already in remote mountainous territory, VBine’s product could be a huge money saver.

The company has sold about 150 units in Canada, installed 35, and is close to signing its first contracts in India, says Dwight Siman, a VBine executive, who says the company has hired a local sales agent.

“There are 800 million Indians who simply don’t know what electricity is, they haven’t seen it, and there are 80,000 communities with no electrical hookups,” he says, exaggerating to make a point.

India has been flush with these kinds of opportunities ever since the Indian government liberalized its economy in 1991.

As foreign companies have charged in and domestic ones have prospered, India has been transformed. According to Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, the country of 1.2 billion now boasts 69 billionaires and more than 126,700 millionaires.

In 1951, Life magazine noted that although India was “an immense country with 357 million people with enormous resources and superb fighting men,” the country “can neither feed herself nor defend herself from serious attacks. An inhabitant of India lives, on average, 27 years. His annual income is about $50. About 90 of 100 Indians cannot read or write. They exist in squalor or famine.”

Nowadays, the newly minted middle class increasingly contemplates whether to order the chicken nuggets or filet of fish sandwich.

Fast food giant McDonald’s has 215 restaurants in India and plans to open many more along the country’s improving highway system. Over the next 10 years, 50 per cent of the McDonald’s revenue in India should come from smaller towns and highway restaurants, a company executive recently told the Hindustan Times.
But India remains, of course, a developing country. Its gains haven’t hid the fact that more than 42 per cent of children under 5 are underweight and critically malnourished. In China, by contrast, the comparable number is 7 per cent. India is home to at least one-quarter of the world’s hungry, 230 million residents, a depressing trend Prime Minister Manmohan Singh concedes is the country’s “national shame.”

Still, some companies have found ways to market goods and services to India’s many have-nots, particularly its 700 million rural residents. Unilever’s Dove brand, for example, has only been available in India for three years and already posts sales of $100 million.

The South Korean electronics company LG sells 51 types of air conditioners here and 31 washing machines, many to consumers in small cities and villages.
Another company, Eureka Forbes, has an 8,000-strong sales force selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door in rural India. The company’s selling roughly $290 million worth of vacuums a year and has become a case study at the Harvard Business School.Its customers include the likes of Mallika Rao, a 60-year-old New Delhi housekeeper.

Rao says she makes 11,000 rupees ($230) per month and her husband brings in another 9,000 rupees as a driver. In the 10 years since they moved to New Delhi from the southern state of Kerala, their incomes have doubled, giving them the chance to afford small luxuries like a used Honda motorcycle and cellphones for themselves and each of their two children. Trouble is, while their incomes are rising, their expenses seem to climb faster.

“We spend 8,500 rupees on our rent and 7,000 more on food,” Rao says. “Most people are like this. Our costs have gone up so much. This place is not so easy to live.”
Truth is, it’s not so easy to work, either.

Some investors may provide stories of inspiration, but there is a litany of frustrating setbacks.

Indian labour laws are archaic, corruption is endemic and bureaucracy is an unpredictable sea of red tape. It can take 200 days to get a construction permit and seven years to close a business, The Economist recently reported. Indian law makes it onerous to close down a business with more than 10 employees without government permission.

Even as India covets investment, there are worries about a growing sense of hubris among government officials here: recently, Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee was asked how he would boost India’s GDP growth to 9 per cent; he replied he simply needed “the blessings of a god and a goddess.”
Corruption is a constant worry. A Canadian official with a European construction company said it has become standard practice when he’s building new government projects for clients to ask him to cut corners.

“If (building) code is 12 inches of concrete, they’ll want me to pour eight and split the cost savings,” he said.

The past year is known as a “season of scams” because there have been so many corruption scandals, including $40 billion in lost revenue from the sale of 2G telecom licences, and billions of dollars in Commonwealth Games scams.

Vodaphone bought a wireless company in India for $11 billion in 2007, executing the sale in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes. The Indian government rejected the move, handing Vodaphone a $3.5 billion tax bill. The company is contesting the decision in court and its penalty could be doubled for late payment.
“There are new hurdles every day and they can change the rules of the market as you are playing it,” Martin Pieters, chief executive of Vodaphone’s India business told the New York Times. “If you don’t have the stomach for that, please don’t come.”

Then, there can be strategic miscues.

Gillette, for instance, spent millions developing a new razor for the Indian market, and tested its razor on Indian men studying at a U.S. university. The men loved the product and the company took it into the Indian market in 2004.

It was a bust.

Unlike North Americans, most Indians don’t have access to running water. The razors clogged up and had to be redesigned.

Gillette rebounded, however, and last year debuted a new razor called the Gillette Guard, a low-cost, stripped-down model that doesn’t have a lubrication strip or colourful handle and sells in India for 34 cents. Replacement blades cost just 11 cents each.

Analysts say the mobile phone has become key for foreign companies looking to dive into the Indian market.

While there are about 5 million iPhones and other high-end smartphone users in India, some 800 million Indians rely on more modest mobile handsets.

“So many people are focusing on the top end of the economic pyramid in India,” Jigsee’s Newal says. “We’re going the other way, looking at the bottom end.”
Born and raised in Toronto to parents who emigrated from Guyana, Newal started Jigsee after a decade spent building up Internet companies DoubleClick, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Newal began knocking on doors on Bay Street in search of funding for Jigsee. His pitch was promising. He told venture capitalist firms that Jigsee had developed algorithms that allow a wireless device to read and optimize the flow of data from a server, so that it flows more efficiently through a wireless network.
But Canadian investors weren’t interested.

“They all knew us but none were willing to take a chance,” Newal says. “It was bizarre because then we came to India and made our presentation to the (venture capital group) Indian Angel Investors Network. They didn’t know us at all, but they saw the unique product we had and how it could be commercialized, and they approved us.”

After securing more than $1 million from the Angel Investors and Sequioa Capital — Newal will only say the company got “a seven-figure U.S. number” — Jigsee began offering its download service in India in August. It’s adding 2,500 users each day.

Since the downloads are free, users pay only for their cellphone time, which can be as low as three-tenths of a rupee per minute — or about 36 cents to watch a two-hour movie.

With no promotion, Jigsee had more than 300,000 downloads in its first eight weeks.
“No doubt there are issues here with endemic corruption and a lack of creativity and invention, but India has one of the youngest educated populations in the world,” he says.

Still, Newal has had his share of hurdles.

He came close to signing a lease agreement for commercial space in Mumbai with someone who didn’t have the right to rent the space. It also took weeks of haggling by the Canadian High Commission before local authorities would approve a travel visa for a key Jigsee executive who was a naturalized Canadian.
He also learned there are cultural differences to be reckoned with.

“As a Canadian, it’s easy to take a ‘yes’ from a large potential Indian customer in the same way we would a large customer in Canada,” he said. “It wasn’t until I got here that I realized a ‘yes’ was more of a ‘wait while I think about it.’ No start-up has time for that.”

Vinod Goswami , a taxi driver in New Delhi, stands under the shade of a banyan tree at a roadside restaurant and contemplates how his life has changed.
He makes 8,000 rupees a month ($160), up from 4,500 three years ago. To save money, he lives with his brother and their friend in a one-room flat. After spending 2,000 for rent and food — he eats rice and lentils every day — Goswami sends 5,000 rupees to his family in Himachal Pradesh state, leaving him 1,000 for emergencies and savings.

Goswami, with clean-cut black hair and a bright row of perfect white teeth, is an avid fan of Hindi films. Would he part with some of his savings to watch the latest Bollywood offerings on his phone?

“I think I would find some money for that,” he laughs. “Just don’t tell my wife.”

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