Track2Realty Exclusive: In China, SEZs were developed along its southern coast in the areas of Shenzhen, Shantou, Zhuhai, Hainan and Xiamen which were backward small villages lacking in basic infrastructure and industrial resources. These zones were developed as manufacturing hubs and the open access to international trade sea lanes led to their success.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The remarkable difference in export performance of China vis-à-vis India over the last two decades compelled India to look at its northern neighbour for successful strategies. One of the key strategies leading to the Chinese success was setting up of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) since 1980. SEZs became the drivers of China’s massive export surge and today, the 5 major Chinese SEZs account for a cumulative FDI of approx. $70 billion, generate 20 per cent of China’s total exports and provide direct employment to over 8 million people.
Track2Realty-Agencies: IDFC Alternatives, real estate arm of Infrastructure Development Finance Corp. Ltd (IDFC) has bought assets worth about Rs. 250 crore in Pune’s real estate developer Paranjape Schemes (Construction) Ltd’s Hinjewadi Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITeS) firms and luxury residential space.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Print advertising, television commercials, outdoors and, of course, events….real estate has done all that it takes to reach to the customers. However, what matters the most has been neglected the most, observes Track2Realty. It is the social power of the buyers and the online reputation management of the developers that will be the game changer in the year ahead.
Track2Realty: Indiaproperty.com has launched the IndiaProperty App for the recently launched Windows 8 operating system. Windows 8 users can get the immediate benefit of the property search experience from the IndiaProperty App that is already available in the Windows Store, which will simplify and enhance their property search experience.
Singapore-listed technology park developer Ascendas is close to acquire an IT Special Economic Zone of Shriram Properties in Chennai for about Rs 500 crore, said banking sources close to the development. Ascendas, which owns a string of business parks in India, is said to have pipped competing offers from other global investors Tishmen Speyer, Xander Group and Mapletree, a real estate arm of Temasek.
Real estate-focused Private Equity Funds are looking at investing in pre-leased commercial projects, including IT Parks and Special Economic Zones (SEZs), as they look for assured returns from their investments.
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.
A Parliamentary panel has castigated the government for not establishing industries in almost half the SEZs set up since 2006 and giving the land to realtors, diverting fertile land of farmers.
Realtors who are in the business of developing SME clusters believe in recent years, the metro cities have also seen a good increase in SMEs, which have catapulted themselves into mid- to large sizes within 3 to four years.
