Salaried individuals 'can also make significant investments'

This was the consensus among financial experts, who spoke on Friday night in a forum held in conjunction with the 8th Khaleej Times India Investment Show at Dhow Palace Hotel which ended its two-day run yesterday.

"Somebody can do investment without stress by adopting a systematic investment plan," said Ramesh Krishnamurthy, senior vice-president of Barjeel Geojit Securities, an investment management firm.

The plan may include a depositor giving a "mandate" to his bank to regularly transfer a pre-determined amount of money from his monthly salary to his pre-determined funds at a pre-determined date.

"This is the only time-tested way of doing investment," he stressed saying that a "stand-alone" way of investing involves the hassle of braving road traffic and queuing up in banks.

Ananda Kumar N, business head for the Middle East of Mumbai-based equity and securities adviser Sharekhan, stressed the investment potential of India particularly its Sensex on the Bombay Stock Exchange whose benchmark index breached the 20,000-mark on December 11.

India's total stock market capitalisation has reached $1.5 trillion, or 50 per cent more than its gross domestic product of $1 trillion.

Kumar stressed that the sustained growth in the emerging Indian economy over the last five years is brought by, among other things, the declining inflation and fiscal deficit and strong foreign investment inflows.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has said that India will get over $20 billion a year in foreign direct investment (FDI) for the next five years. India's FDI inflows rose 218 per cent to $11.4 billion for the first six months from $3.6 billion a year earlier.

Indian Minister of Commerce and Industries Kamal Nath has stated that the country's FDI will top $30 billion for the current fiscal year covering April 2007 to March 2008.

Krishnamurthy said that Barjeel, which maintains UAE offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah and in the Omani capital of Muscat, has sought accreditation with the Dubai Financial Market to start advising DFM investors by March 2008.

"We will be consolidating our operations here in the UAE first because we have lots of ground to cover, and then we will expand into the other Gulf markets," he said.

Kumar stressed that the Indian economy has also been fuelled by its increasingly well education population and with the help of the internet, which can be used to source more information on just about anything including the global financial sector.

Lakshmi Iyer, vice-president and product head of Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company, told the forum of investment opportunities in India's infrastructure industry. She said the industry has multiple sectors including construction, metal and mining, industrial, logistics, telecoms, finance and utilities.

The two-day trade show was dedicated to major companies in the banking, financial services and insurance sector that showcased their products and services to non-resident Indians (NRIs) and people of Indian origin (PIO) in Dubai and the whole Gulf market.

The chief manager for Gulf business of show organiser Mediascope Publicitas (India) Pvt Ltd, Yogesh Hemmadi, said the show attracted 10 major companies as exhibitors including Kotak, the global financial services firm Motilal Oswal and Bank of Baroda, one of India's premier banks.