Retail, real estate poised for further growth in 2008: study

New Delhi, Dec 31 (UNI) The year 2008 will witness further boom in the retail and real estate sector, with the year-on-year growth touching 30-35 per cent and 40-45 per cent respectively over the calendar year 2007, an industry body said.

The organised and unorganised retail size in 2007 has been estimated at 330 billion dollars, which is likely to grow up to 365 billion dollars in 2008 and further reach the size of 440 billion dollars by 2010, industry chamber Assocham said.

''Of the total 330 billion dollars, the organised retail industry is around less than five per cent which works out to be slightly more than 16 billion dollars,'' Assocham President Venugopal N Dhoot said.

The space occupation in the organised retail sector is also expected to grow to about 16 million sq ft from the current 14 million sq ft, as retailers like Reliance, Plaza, DLF, Spencer and Aditya Birla Group witness major expansion drive in this sector in 2008.

This segment would witness an additional investment of 70 billion dollars by 2010 and the investment size would be around 25-28 billion dollars in 2008, study says.

In 2007-08 fiscal, the contribution of the retail sector to the national GDP is estimated between 8-10 per cent, which would further jump to nearly 12 per cent in next few years.

The rural retail size, estimated at 30 billion dollars in 2007, is expected to be around 36 billion dollars in 2008 with 150 new malls likely to be added that would capture larger organised retail market size, it said.

The real estate sector, currently estimated at 15 billion dollars, will however witness a slow down in metros and large cities by 2010.

But, the major expansion drive in tier II and tier III and even tier IV cities will contribute to the boom in the sector, the chamber said.

Mr Dhoot said an estimated 10 billion dollars is expected to flow into the domestic realty sector by end of 2008.

Currently, world's 100 leading real estate majors have already found a foothold in the country's Indian realty sector. The increased flow of funds has resulted in various policy measures to check the guess of speculative money, he added.

UNI