Dec 3, 2007, 12:42 GMT
New Delhi - Rakeen, a state-run property development company from the United Arab Emirates, and leading Indian industrial raw materials supplier Trimex Group on Monday announced a 5-billion- dollar investment in India's booming realty sector.
Rakeen and Trimex have formed an equal equity joint venture company, Rakiendo Developers, to undertake its projects in India, including the development of 50 million square feet of residential, commercial and office space, over the next seven years.
The first project, spread over 1,000 acres, of the venture will be a 1.5 billion-dollar integrated township and Special Economic Zone in Coimbatore in India's southern city Tamil Nadu, and is to be completed by the first quarter of next year.
'Establishing an integrated township and IT park in Tamil Nadu affirms our belief in the state and is definitely a step towards our effort to bring world-class facilities to India,' said Khattar Massad, advisor to the crown prince of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), and CEO of the RAK Investment Authority.
Rakeen began operations in 2006, in a royal decree by the crown prince and deputy ruler of RAK, one of the emirates in the UAE.
Rakiendo has a land bank of over 4,000 acres and is negotiating to acquire an additional 5,000 acres, to undertake realty projects in India's upcoming tier-I and tier-II cities, which are a peg down compared to the metros like Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
Trimex Group, founded in 1985 and based in southern city Chennai in Tamil Nadu, is the largest industrial raw material conglomerate in the sub-continent and the Middle East, and has an annual turnover in excess of 200 million dollars.
India's combined commercial and residential real estate market - valued at between 15-20 billion dollars - is growing at 30 per cent per year, and expected to be worth 90 billion dollars within the next 10 years.
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