Edelweiss India Conference 2011 - Post Conference Notes - Day 2

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We present our key takeaways of day 2 of the Edelweiss India Conference 2011: India Discovers Africa- Building bridges, broadening horizons. The two-day event brought together about 70 companies and enabled over 2,000 interactions through one-on-one and group meetings.

Apart from the regular corporate-company interactions, a key feature of this year's conference was the panel discussions on opportunities for various industry segments in Africa. In the panel discussion on the telecom sector, one of the key findings was the vast opportunity that Africa offers given its favorable demographics and rising income levels. Participants also pointed out that operators can also cut costs by sharing infrastructure, thereby passing on the benefits to consumers. For the pharma sector, panelists pointed out that Africa presents a strong and growing opportunity with strong domestic consumption growth, branded generic nature of the market, and various government initiatives to improve the healthcare coverage. Interestingly, since 50-60% of the market is import dependent, many Indian companies are making serious investments in these markets. Also, every market in Africa seemed to present its own set of challenges in terms of entry barriers and time to receive approvals.

Through corporate-company interactions, we gained substantial valuable insights. Within the capital goods sector, corporates were concerned about the delay in project awards in the power equipment space. Clients, in their view, were also taking more time to finalize projects. In the oil & gas sector, investors believe that rising crude prices will impact demand. Also, investors were of the opinion that post the Japan earthquake, refining margins could show an uptrend over the medium term. Within the auto sector, most investors were concerned about the macro-environment and its impact on margins was actively debated. Interactions with corporates in the real estate sector indicate that pace of approvals from government was slow. Lack of funding also seemed to be an issue, although corporates were hopeful that it would pick up over the medium term. Although demand was sluggish in January in some key real estate markets such as Mumbai, some recovery was posted in late February and March. Overall, the mood was that of cautious optimism.

Apart from providing  several opportunities to participants to discover the potential of cross-border trade and investments in Africa, the conference was also successful in facilitating a robust platform for investors to interact with corporates.