Confident Indian company achieves success in Latin America

Confident is both adjective and noun in this story.

It is the name of a small but confident company from Coimbatore which has inspired confidence among Latin American clients and got 500,000 dollars of orders for its textile machinery in Peru, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Argentina.

Confidence is embedded in the name of the company itself.
It is Confident Engineering Pvt Ltd. http://www.confidentengineering.com/
Their email is confidentindia@gmail.com

More precisely it is the self confidence of Rathnakumar, the Managing Director of the company who has managed to inspire the confidence of the textile companies of South America.

Hardwork and perseverance have complemented the confidence of Rathnakumar in bringing about success in Latin America. He has spent the last one month in Argentina, Peru and Ecuador. He came with the CII delegation on 28 June and is leaving from Buenos Aires on 31 July. He spent ten days in each country. He is planning to come back to the region in the next three months and target Brazil and Colombia.

Rathnakumar has appointed dynamic and proactive agents in these three countries. These agents had taken him to visit over 30 textile plants. He convinced the technical staff and management of some of these companies that he could help them reduce their cost of production with his dyeing and finishing and effluent treatment machinery which costs just half the price of those which they import from Europe.He carried a small prototype of his Effluent water treatment plant and gave demonstration to the clients using their plant waste water. Confident Engineering has innovated a new technology to treat waste water of dyeing plants through an electrocoagulation method without the use of chemicals. They are applying for patent for this.

Rathnakumar wanted to participate in an exihibition in Buenos Aires in 2008 and paid 1500 dollars for the stall. But the Argentine embassy in Delhi did not give him visa. He lost the money and the opportunity. The Embassy wanted him to produce a original invitation from an Argentine client attested by an Argentine notary public. This is an unauthorised procedure being adopted by some corrupt elements in the Argentine embassy in Delhi, in violation of the Argentine government procedure. Was Rathna Kumar deterred. No! He waited and got the visa now without an invitation letter. He does not have any rancour. He is focussed on the future potential and does not bother about past setbacks.

In Peru, he got order for 70.000 dollars for a machine which he has never made so far. He showed the client a French machine in a Peruvian plant and told him he could make a similiar one. The client was convinced by the confident competence of Rathnakumar and gave him the order.

What difference did he find in business with South American clients? He says here they dont want to open LC . Most of them prefer to deal in cash. They pay an advance amount by TT and the rest they pay later. They retain a percentage of payment as guarantee for performance of his machine. Of course, Latin American importers open LCs for large orders.

Confident Engineering is a small scale enterprise with a turnover of just 1.5 million dollars and 40 employees. Their machines cost from 20,000 to 100,000 dollars. The company was started by Rathnakumar, an electronics engineer and his partner in 2003 with an investment of 20,000 dollars. Rathnakumar had worked with Larsen and Tubro for six years but left it to follow his enterpreunerial instinct. He got a breakthrough in Bangladesh for his dyeing and finishing machines. Now he has set up a fullfledged office in Dhaka to manage supply of machines and service them. Then he got some orders from Indonesia and Srilanka.

Now his focus is on Latin America. He expects to get orders worth five million dollars in the next few years. He has already established his reputation in Peru, Ecuador and Dominican Republic and now in Argentina. His next targets are Colombia and Brazil.

How did the Latin Americans treat Rathnakumar in his business and personal interactions in the last one month, I asked him. He found the Latin Americans pleasant and friendly. Of course, they needed to be convinced that they could risk their money with a small company in a remote corner of India. But they were willing to listen to him with open mind.

The Latin American textile industry had been importing from Europe and Japan. But now they want to try lesser expensive sources such as China and India. In these days of global financial crisis, local credit crunch, tough market conditions and globalised competition, the Latin Americans are focussing on cutting the cost of production. For this, they are turning to ess expensive import sources such as China and India. They mentioned to him about their preference for India over China beacuse of cultural reasons. They told him that they could understand and communicate and trust the Indians better. They looked at him as a person from the well-known land of Yoga, Meditation, Sai Baba, Hare krishna, Mahatma Gandhi....

What about language and food? I ask him.
This mild mannered Sambar- Idly South Indian smiles and says ¨No problem. I have already picked up some basic spanish in my two trips. I can understand the technical and price parts of the negotiations. Now I plan to take a crash course for a couple of weeks.¨I advised him to try the Instituto Hispania in Chennai.

Food. He eats whatever Latin America offers except beef. He does not miss Iddly Sambar in this one month absence from India. He liked the ceviche of Peru and empanada ( latino samosa ) of the region.

In my last blog story I wrote about the Latin American success of TCS, which is a big company. But in the case of Confident Engineering, it is the story of success of a small Indian company. I hope this will inspire and motivate the small and medium exporters of India.

What our exporters need for business with Latin America is ....Confidence ! Confidence in Latin America !

Indian exports to Latin America increased by 50 percent in 2008 to 7.5 billion dollars from 5 billion in 2007. What else is needed to inspire confidence?

Gabriel Rozman… Uruguyan Wizard of TCS

During the India- Latin America Business Seminar in Buenos Aires on 2 July, when it was announced that a Senior Vice President of Tata Consultancy Services ( TCS) in charge of Latin America, Spain, Portugal, Middle East, Africa and East Europe, would make a presentation, the audience expected to see a Chandrashekar or Srinivasan. They were surprised and puzzled when Gabriel Rozman, a Uruguyan came on the stage. The Argentine dignitary sitting on the stage next to me shrugged his shoulders,raised his eyebrows and looked at me. I told him Gabriel Rozman is a Uruguyan of Hungarian origin, holding a US passport. Most of the time he is up in the sky in planes crisscrossing the oceans. Even when he is next to you, he is constantly fiddling with his Blackberry. He has houses in Punta de Leste, Buenos Aires and NewYork and may be he is buying one in Mumbai.

Picture above: Rozman speaking at the Seminar.

It is not only the audience in Argentina who are puzzled by the unexpected Rozman-TCS combination. Clients in Latin America, US, Europe and the emerging markets are also taken aback when Rozman markets TCS services to them. He reels off the history and reputation of TCS and Tata Group with passion and pride. His opening line is ¨somos el grupo mas importante de la India - We are the most important group of India¨. Rozman is a regular speaker on India and IT at the international and regional business conferences in Latin America.

Rozman joined TCS in 2001 and started the company´s operations in Uruguay in 2002 with 15 staff. Today the company employs 800 Uruguyans and plans to expand and double the strength in the next few years. The Uruguay Center of TCS provides offshore IT services to US, Europe and Latin America. Being a small country, Uruguyan IT human resources are obviously limited. To meet this challenge, TCS has started a Regional Training Center in Montevideo for Uruguyans and Latin Americans. This has already trained over 500 professionals and the target is 3000 within the next two years.

When Rozman proposed to TCS that Montevideo would be the launching pad for Latin America, the bosses in Mumbai were skeptical. They knew Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. But Uruguay.... hmm... such a small country with a tiny amount of human resources and unviable local market ! To answer these questions and convince the company, Gabriel arranged the visit of Ratan Tata, the Chairman of the Tata Group to Uruguay in January 2004. Tata had readily agreed after seeing the business climate of Uruguay and the seriousness of the Uruguyans.

Picture above: from left to right, Rozman, Ramadorai CEO of TCS, Rattan Tata and Battle President of Uruguay.

To my knowledege, this was the first ever business visit of Ratan Tata to Latin America. It was after this visit that the Tata group has started taking Latin America seriously.

From Uruguay, Rozman expanded the TCS operations to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Chile through the organic as well as the inorganic route. Rozman managed to get President Felipe Calderon himself to inagurate the Mexican centre of TCS in 2007. Rozman got two large contracts of more than 150 million dollars each from Banco Pichincha in Ecuador and the Mexican pension fund system. Six percent of the global revenue of TCS comes from Latin America.

Currently, TCS employs around 6000 Latin Americans including 2000 Chileans, 1700 Brazilians, 1000 Mexicans, , 800 Uruguayans, 150 Argentines and a few hundred Ecuadorians and Colombians. Latin Americans form 48% of the non-Indian staff of TCS, whose total strength is close to 100,000.

Rozman´s conquest of Latin America lead to his promotion in January 2008 from Head of Iberoamerica to the next level of Executive Vice President for Emerging Markets. As part of TCS’ Executive Leadership team, he is responsible for leading the company’s strategy to enter new markets and other strategic corporate initiatives.

Rozman is undoubtedly the secret behind the success of TCS in Latin America. I remember when I was Consul General in Sao Paulo, TCS was struggling to enter Latin America through Brazil. The Indian representative of TCS who was working on the Latin America entry strategy in SaoPaulo was frustrated that despite the impeccable reputation and competitive pricing the Latin Americans did not take TCS seriously. The Latin American clients were willing to pay more to North American IT companies who would in turn outsource the job to India. It was Rozman, with his multicultural skills, who changed their mindset and made them feel confident and comfortable in dealing directly with Indian IT companies. Rozman´s Latino charm, understanding of Indian culture and American style of aggressive marketing paid off. It was only after his success in opening Latin America for TCS that other Indian IT companies including Infosys, WIPRO have started entering this region. But the business of other Indian IT companies is a very small fraction of the turnover of TCS in the region even now.

Rozman has used diplomacy too. He has succeeded in convincing Ramadorai, the CEO of TCS to become the Honorary Consul of Uruguay in Mumbai. I guess the patriotism of Rozman is also behind the success of a Uruguyan architect Carlos Ott who got a contract to build the 250 million dollar IT complex of TCS in Chennai. It will be one of the largest IT complexes in the world with 30,000 staff .

The TCS success in Latin America has pioneered a new 12/ 12 business model for Indian IT companies for delivery of offshore services to North American clients. Twelve hours of service from Latin America ( the same time zone as that of North America) and twelve hours from India. This is better than the 24/7 model in which Indians dont get time to sleep. In the 12/12 model. the Indians get time to sleep while the Latin Americans work !

The second advantage is the multilingual skills of the Latin Americans. They are proficient in Spanish, Portuguese,Italian, French and German since their grandparents or great parents came from Europe. Of course, many graduates speak English. One should also remember that USA has about 50 million Hispanics who have become the largest minority there and Latin America is a base from which to reach out to the US Hispanic market.

Latin America, like India, has lot of young people. They are better tuned to American and European culture, fashion and mindset than the Indians. They are also creative, imaginative and free-spirited. These traits are especially useful for design and creative work.

Gabriel Rozman-TCS success is an example of the emerging strategic win-win partnership between India and Latin America in the IT sector. I hope this will be an inspiration for more Latino Rozmans and Indian companies.

cost of living in Latin American cities

According to a Mercer survey, quoted by Latin Business Chronicle of July 2009,

Caracas has replaced Sao Paulo as the most expensive city in Latin America for foreign executives. Caracas is now more expensive than cities like London and Helsinki.

The survey looks at the comparative cost of over 200 items, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment in 143 cities worldwide, including 16 in Latin America.

Other cities that became more expensive since the last year survey include Buenos Aires, Panama City, Santo Domingo and Quito.

Monterrey in Mexico has replaced Paraguay's capital Asuncion as the least expensive city in Latin America.
Cities that became less expensive include Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Guatemala City, Bogota, Lima, Santiago, Montevideo, San Jose, Mexico City, Asuncion and Monterrey.

Here is the list of Latin American cities with their world ranking in terms of cost of living:

World Rank - City

15 -Caracas, Venezuela
72 -Sao Paulo, Brazil
73 -Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
93-Panama City, Panama
104-Santo Domingo, Dom. Rep.
112-Buenos Aires, Argentina
119-Guatemala City, Guatemala
120-Bogota, Colombia
122-Lima, Peru
128-Santiago, Chile
131-Montevideo, Uruguay
132-San Jose, Costa Rica
136-Quito, Ecuador
137- Mexico City, Mexico
141-Asuncion, Paraguay
143-Monterrey, Mexico

Elgi launches 100% subsidiary in Brazil

Elgi Equipments, a leading manufacturer of compressors in India has launched a 100% subsidiary at Sao Paolo in Brazil to directly market its products. It would also start manufacturing the products in the country soon.

Elgi is based in Coimbatore in the state of Tamilnadu.

"Initially, the new company would concentrate on marketing our products in Brazil. We would import the products from India and then stock them in a warehouse and make it available off-the-shelf," said Elgi Equipments MD Jairam Varadaraj.

Elgi has made the first stage investment of around two million dollars. After an 18-24 months gestation period, the new company would set up a manufacturing plant and commence commercial production, he said. ‘Elgi Compressores Do Brazil’ would engage in marketing of electric and diesel screw compressors. It would also set up a wide network of distributors with main focus on service and after marketproducts.

"So far, we sold close to 100 pieces in Brazil through distributors. Since we find acceptance for our products, we decided to start a new company to sell our products there," V T Govindarajan, Director – Global Business, Elgi Equipments told Economic Times of India.

He said Brazil accounts for about 4% share of the global market for industrial compressors. "We are aiming to capture 10% of the Brazil market for screw compressors within a period of four years" Mr Govindarajan added.

Last year, Elgi established two overseas subsidiaries, one in Sharjah in the Gulf and ‘ a wholly owned manufacturing plant at Jiaxing in China with a marketing office in Shanghai. In 2008-09, Elgi’s compressor segment posted a turnover of Rs 471 crores, of which 17 % was from international operations.

Patni Computer Systems Opens First Delivery Center in Latin America- June 2009

Patni Computer Systems of India announced the opening of a new delivery center in Queretaro,Mexico to augment its global delivery capabilities and serve the North American and Latin American markets. The Center will offer Patni’s full range of services and solutions covering IT consulting, software development outsourcing, contact center operations and business process outsourcing.

Patni is opening the delivery center in a temporary facility in Tecnologico de Monterrey’s Queretaro campus with an initial seating capacity of about 100 full-time workers. The center will move to a permanent location at Technology Park of Tech De Monterrey in October this year. Patni is planning to gradually expand employment to about 300, with the bulk of the jobs being filled with local workers.

With an employee strength of over 14,500; multiple global delivery centers spread across 12 cities worldwide; 27 international offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific; Patni has registered revenues of US$ 719 million for the year 2008.

TCS opens third Global Delivery centre in Mexico

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has opened its third global delivery centre in Queretaro, Mexico and seventh in Latin America. The other two Mexican centres are in Mexico City and Guadalajara in Jalisco state.

The company expects to hire 500 professionals during the current financial year for its new centre. With over 1,000 people in Mexico alone, TCS plans to take the headcount to 5,000 by 2012.

TCS has a presence in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico. The total headcount in Latin America is over 5,000. Contribution from Ibero America, which covers Latin America, was 4.7 per cent of the company’s revenue for 2008-9.

The new delivery centre in Mexico will provide advanced IT services, consultancy, test factory, business process outsourcing, contact center, IT infrastructure solutions, industrial & engineering services and solutions based on exclusive TCS products to existing and potential customers.

TCS established its operations in Mexico in 2003 and already serves more than 30 local clients in addition to international clients across various industries, including telecom, finance, banking, manufacture and retail.

Infosys Opening unit in Brazil

India’s second biggest software exporter Infosys Technologies plans to open a software development and back office centre in Brazil later this year, as the company seeks to serve its US customers better by establishing a near-shore presence.

Apart from being a local delivery centre, the new unit will also help Infosys gain more business from the regional market, V Balakrishnan, chief financial officer of Infosys, told Economic Tiems of India in an interview. “Some of our US customers asked for a centre in Brazil, as the country falls in the same time zone,” Mr Balakrishnan said. The centre is expected to begin its operations within next three-four months, and is expected to employ around 100 professionals initially across the functions of IT and back office projects.

TCS and Wipro already have centres in Brazil. While TCS has around 1,700 people in Brazil with development centres in Brasilia and Sao Paulo servicing around 30 clients, Wipro has a BPO centre in Curitiba providing shared services to AmBev, a leading brewery company.

Brazil recorded IT exports worth $1.4 billion for 2008 registering 75% percent growth and employs around 1.7 million people in the sector. Infosys joins the likes of TCS and Wipro Technologies in having their operations in Brazil.

Simmar Pal Singh - Peanut Prince in Argentina

During my golf game at the Rio Cuarto Country Club on 16 May, the Argentine players asked me where they could buy a Turban and how to wear it. I asked them the reason for this special interest. They showed me a villa within the country club complex and said ¨Here lives an Indian Maharaja. He looks handsome with his Turban. When he goes to the night clubs , he gets premium service and gets it free because they think he is a Maharaja.¨ The Argentines wanted to wear Turbans and get the same special treatment at the night clubs.

The envy of the Argentines is Simmar Pal Singh, a Sikh from India. I clarified to the Argentines that Turbans do not mean Maharajas. They asked me to shut up and not to reveal this secret at the night clubs ! I told them that Simmar Pal is not a Maharaja by birth but has become a Peanut Prince of Argentina.

Here is Simmar Pal in dark suit on the left. In the middle is Nityanand, from Coimbatore, who is the manager of the peanut processing plant. On the right is Narinder Pal Singh, Olam manager in Brazil.

Simmar Pal Singh cultivates 12,000 hectares of peanut farms and another 5000 hectares of soya and corn in Rio Cuarto area in Cordoba province, about one thousand kms from Buenos Aires. His target is to take his company Olam among Argentina´s top three peanut players in the next few years. When he came to Argentina in 2005, his company was 28th in ranking in peanuts and he has already made it as sixth this year. Argentina is the second largest exporter of peanuts after China, accounting for 25% of the world trade in kernels. Rio Cuarto region produces high-quality peanuts with its ideal soil and agroclimatic conditions.

During the dinner at his home, Simmar Pal's wife Harpreet Kaur, an architect with an M.Tech from IIT Delhi, laughed when I told her about the Argentine interest in Turbans. She said that Simmar Pal might have gone to the night club to check the peanuts his company had supplied to the club to serve with the drinks. I believe her. Simmar Pal works sixteen hours a day and has no time for night clubs. This modest young man from Amritsar has fiery ambitions, exceptional talents and is motivated by his success in the last five years. Simmar Pal did his B.Sc Honours in Agriculture from Guru Nanak Dev University and Masters degree in Rural Management from IRMA, Anand. He has worked in Mozambique, Ivory Coast and Ghana before coming to Argentina. He speaks Spanish fluently and his wife and two children have adopted to the life in Rio Cuarto, a small city of 140,000 people.

Simmar Pal works for Olam, the 5.6 - billion dollar Non-Resident Indian company headquarterd in Singapore. It is a leading global supply chain manager of agricultural products and food ingredients. Their 9000 employees worldwide operate an integrated supply chain for 20 products in 60 countries. It is a global leader in many of these businesses including Cocoa, Coffee, Cashew, Sheanuts, Sesame, Rice, Cotton and Teak Wood. Olam has a turnover of 500 million dollars in Brazil and employs 930 Brazilians. In their operations in Colombia and Peru they have sixty employees. More info http://www.olamonline.com

Simmar Pal came to Argentina in 2005 for buying peanuts for the company. When he found that the farmers preferred to sell their products to established companies and were hesitant to deal with new buyers, he proposed to his company that they should go into farming themselves. This was something new for the company which had been operating only in the field of trading and processing. Seeing the fire in Simmarpal´s belly and shine in his eyes, they wanted to give him a chance. He started off with leasing of 700 hectares of land and grew peanuts. It was a sucess. The company let him lease additional acreage. This year he has cultivated 17000 hectares including 2000 hectares in the province of salta about 700 kms away from Rio Cuarto. He has plans to continue the increase in acreage and grow other crops such as wheat, soya and pulses. Some of these and especially pulses could be exported to India.

Picture below is Peanut harvesting by the machine in Simmar Pal´s farm:

Olam has acquired two peanut processing plants. When I went to visit one of the plants, the mayor of the village Dalmacio Velez, of 2000 people, was there. He made a speech expressing his happiness with Olam which has turned around the factory and has given jobs to his village people.

Simmar Pal employs 140 Argentines, most of them in the processing plants. In the farm, he has very few people since the farming in Argentina is mechanised and everything is outsourced. Simmarpal contracts other companies for seeding, spraying of pesticides, harvesting etc. I did not mention ploughing because, in Argentina they dont plough the land anymore. They practise what is called as Direct Seeding ( siembre directa) which means they dont prepare the land with ploughing after the previous harvest. They let the residues from the previous harvest to rot and become manure. Seeding is done with a special machine which puts the seed inside the earth along with fertilisers without opening the earth around the seed.The land retains its moisture and organic materials. This is environment-friendly and sustainable agriculture.

The farming in Argentina is done in large scale, technology-driven and is globally competetive. It is done commercially, scientifically and professionally. The farmers consider 2000 hectares as the minimum land holding necessary to do cultivation on their own. When they have less, or when they dont want to dirty their hands, they rent out their land to companies and individuals who do professional cultivation in large scale. Seventy percent of the cultivation in Argentina is on rented land. Simmarpal paid last year 700 dollars per hectare. He has rented the 17000 hectares from 40 owners with holdings ranging from 40 hectares to 3000 hectares.

An Argentine company called as Los Grobo Group cultivates over 200,000 hectares with its professional management. I told the owner of this company, who has got his own aircraft, that the secret of his success is his previous incarnation in Gujarat. His name is Grobocopatel.... Patel is the last part of his name and the gene behind his entrepreunerial talent! No wonder, he is a follower of Saibaba and practises meditation and yoga.

Simmar Pal employs four agronomists and pays them 45,000 dollars each per year. He uses the consultancy services of four more agronomists. The Argentine agronomists get as much salary and prestige as the software specialists. Last week, I visited the farm of a friend Francisco Okecki in Buenos Aires. He is an agronomist who manages 20,000 hectares including 1000 hecatres which belong to him. He is so passionate about agriculture as much as as I am about Latin America.

What Simmar Pal Singh is doing in Argentina has a lesson for India, which is going to face in the long term shortage of agricultural land and water for irrigation for its population which is increasing by 15 million per year and a population equal to Argentina every 32 months ! But Argentina, which has almost the same area as that of India has a small population of 4o million and plenty of land and water. Argentina is an agricultural power house. It exports 50% of its agriproduction of 100 million tons. It is the world’s largest exporter of soy oil and sunflower oil, the second largest exporter of corn, third largest producer of beef , soyabeans and biodiesel and fourth largest of wheat. Argentina is the fifth largest producer of wine in the world. It has significant potential to increase its area under cultivation ( from the mere 32 million hectares at present, in contrast to India´s 130 million hectares ) and production.

In India, we have irrigation canals, dams, ground water pumps and issues of water table going down and free electricity for farmers. Argentines are free from these issues since their agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed. There is irrigation only for a few specialist farms and some vineyards. Indra, the Rain God takes care of the rest !

Argentina has developed an efficient infrastructure, logistics and network for transportation and shipping. The food processing industries of Argentina are one of the most advanced in the world and globally competitive. For example, the oil crushing capacity of Argentina is the third highest in the world- even ahead of Brazil- with the latest technology and plants.

The Argentines have innovated a new system of storage of grains in open air instead of expensive concrete and steel silos. They have developed polythene silobags which can store 200-400 tons on the field itself. The grains are pumped into the bag by a machine and can be stored for upto 15 months. The bag is ripped open at the time of transfer to the trucks. The Argentines have exported this new technology and bags to a number of countries and want to export to India too. Cost of this new type of storage is four dollars per ton.

Argentina could be a longterm source of supply of grains, oil seeds and pulses to India. Already India is importing from Argentina soya and sunflower oil for about 700 million dollars a year. There are occasional imports of wheat.

The Indians could go beyond imports and invest in Agribusiness in Argentina. There is no restriction on foreign investment in agriculture in Argentina. A number of foreign companies and individuals own land here. Cost of the most productive land is 15,000 dollars, which, I am told is cheaper than in Punjab. The Argentine yield per hectare is about three times higher than that of India in soya, peanuts and some other crops. The Solvent Extractors Association of India has formed a Consortium of companies interested in investment in agribusiness in South America.

I hope the Indian enterpreneurs will come to invest in Argentina, inspired by the successful example of Peanut Prince.... Simmar Pal Singh !

They should not forget the Turbans...

China becomes the biggest trading partner of Brazil

In the first four months of 2009, China, overtook USA, as the biggest trading partner of Brazil. The bilateral trade will increse more with the following two agreements signed during the visit of President Lula to China last week:

Beijing announced a 10 billion dollar loan to Petrobras in exchange for supply of 200,000 barrels of crude oil over the next ten years.

The Chinese agreed to lift restrictions on import of Brazilian chicken and agreed to import more meat from Brazil.

Incidentally, Brazil is the largest exporter of chicken in the world. Their exprts in 2007 were 3.2 million tons

Agreements were also signed for supply of bio fuel to China, joint launch of two satellites etc.

Mexican multiplex chain to invest in India

Mexican global multiplex operator Cinepolis plans to invest 340 million dollars in India for its film exhibition business over the next seven years. It has already established an Indian subsidiary that is in talks with mall developers for opening 500 movie screens by 2016. In the first phase of expansion, the company will open 110 screens across eight locations. The company said it will open its first multiplex in India by the second half of this year.

A $675 million film exhibition company, Cinepolis operates over 2,000 screens globally, 90 per cent of which are located in Mexico. The company, which is currently the fifth largest theatre chain in the world, is aiming to move up in the ladder to the fourth slot and its India venture is part of the company's plans to expand its global footprint.

Cinepolis also plans to introduce the concept of a megaplex where each theatre will have up to 14 screens. "We will make India the country with our largest presence outside Mexico. We will open around 500 screens in the next seven years and for every screen, we will be spending around $700,000," Cinepolis India country head Milan Saini said today at the launch. "We are also looking at launching our operations at a smaller scales, whereby we may convert some of the single screens into multi-screen property. There is a space constraint issue here and we have to adjust our business plans accordingly," Saini said. Most of the fund would go in rentals and developing of screens and the amount would be funded by internal accruals, he added.

Source- IBEF

Latin American economies expected to contract in 2009

According to the April 2009 World Economic Outlook issued by IMF, the Latin American region will suffer GDP contraction of 1.5 % in 2009. The region grew by 4.2 % in 2008.

Mexico will be the worst hit with a contraction of 3.7%, while Brazil´s GDP will reduce by 1.3% and that of Argentina by 1.5%.

Bucking the trend, Peru will see a GDP growth of 3.5%, followed by Uruguay with 1.3% and Central America by 1.1%.

Average inflation of the region in 2009 is forecast to decline to 6.6% from 7.9% in 2008.

The region’s current account deficit will widen to 2.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, from about 0.75 percent in 2008.

The IMF predicts the region’s economy will rebound in 2010, expanding 1.6 percent. In 2009, Mexico will see a 3.7 percent contraction in GDP, while Venezuela’s economy will shrink 2.2 percent, the report said.

New Flight connection from India to South America

South African Airways is starting direct flights from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires from 1 April 2009. Here are the schedules:

From Buenos Aires – J-burg – Mumbai
Weds and Fridays :
Buenos Aires – J’burg 1930 – 0855 hrsJ’Burg – Mumbai – 1130 – 0030 hrs

From Mumbai- J’burg – Buenos Aires
Weds-Fridays and Sundays:
Mumbai-J’burg 0230 -0755 hrs J’Burg – Buenos Aires 0950-1730 hrs

This connection has two advantages over connection through Europe. It is cheaper. Secondly there is no need for transit visa in Johannesberg. In the case of Europe, transit visa is needed to pass through airports such as Paris, Frankfurt and London.

Similiar advantage is there in the case of the Emirates direct flight between Dubai and Sao Paulo.