BHP Billiton eyeing strong business in India

Melbourne, Aug 24: The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listed, BHP Billiton today said it is ''pushing aggressively'' in selling its products in India, to capitalise on the boom in one of the world's fastest growing economies.

''We are pushing into India extremely aggressively with regards to selling product there,'' incoming Chief Executive Officer Marius Kloppers has told reporters in a media conference in Melbourne.

BHP, also called the Big Australian, has posted a significant jump in annual profits earlier this week. The mega increase in profits has come from continuing strong growth in the demand for minerals from China and India.

While China continues to be in the driving seat of BHP's growth story, India is increasingly attracting its attention for future market expansion.

The Indian market for BHP products is showing impressive increases as the booming South Asian economy is beginning to outstrip China. The 'Big Australian' is selling more mining products to India than it was in China six years earlier. A BHP statement states that India would drive growth for its energy businesses.

BHP Billiton, which has earmarked a whopping 20 billion dollars for new projects, also said it was not perturbed by the current market volatility. The new projects are being developed to feed rising demand from the developing economies like India and China.

Among the opportunities BHP has short-listed in India, bauxite and iron ore development 'had not yet materialised,' Marius Kloppers told reporters today.

The incoming BHP CEO has also underlined huge opportunities for growth in India saying that nine projects due for completion this year would meet budgets.

Chip Goodyear, the current CEO, has also shown similar optimism and trust in the Indian and Chinese markets.

While there would be 'little bumps along the way', the big message was that BHP remained optimistic that a secular change was under way, with China and India moving 2.5 billion inhabitants into developed-economy status, he said in a statement today.

The current business volume and predicted growth in the above-mentioned markets would also help in, according to Chip Goodyear, overcoming the slowing down of the US market.

''The outcome was as you would suspect. That is, the US is slowing down, as it has for the last year or so. No surprise there.

But in our developing economies - India and China, and other economies around the world, it's essentially business as usual. The fundamentals are intact,'' he has been quoted as saying by the Australian media.

''Export markets are going to have an important role to play, but if you take a look at what is happening in China it is quite domestic. If you look at GDP in absolute terms (not percentage terms), this year China and India are going to be bigger than the US. That's the first time that has ever happened,'' the BHP chief added.

UNI