India-- Foreign Direct Investment Opportunities: Marketing to India

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India: Overview

Political Stablility

India's well-established democratic system--the largest in the world--has provided its people with an unusual degree of political freedom and stability its emphasis on government intervention and public ownership. In 1991, a new government emerged which focused on stabilizing the economy , reforming trade, the financial sector, and public enterprises.. Initially, growth declined sharply in response to the contractionary fiscal and monetary policies adopted to address the crisis. But now it seems that this economic program produced remarkable results.

The India government continues to encourage healthy development of the capital markets through effective regulation, and improved trading and settlement practices (World Bank). India may, however, face a severe economic setback as a result of it's struggle to maintain this political stability and efforts to achieve regional trade flows continue.

Demographic

India occupies only 2.4% of the world's land area but accounts for over 15% of the world's population.

Approximately 36% of Indians are under the age of 15 and 60% are between 15 and 65 with about 70% of its population living in rural areas. The total population, estimated at 931 million people in mid-1996, is second only to China's (World Bank). Population density is 756 people per square mile (Dushkin, 1997). 1997).

HIV/AIDS is a newly emerging threat to India's public health; about 3 million people in India may be affected. Adult literacy rates for women and men were 34% and 62%, respectively (Dushkin, India has made impressive progress over the past three decades in reducing its birth rate from 6 children per woman to 3.2 children per woman, but continues to rank first in terms of total number added to its population each year--about 16 million.

Economic

Since 1991, India has gradually reduced its high import tariffs, delicensed and liberalized imports including those of capital...