High-end retail market to touch $30 bln by 2015

New Delhi, Mar 26 (UNI) Country's high-end retail market is expected to touch 30 billion dollars by 2015, and presents an opportune platform to global luxury goods makers for establishing a foothold in India.

''High-end retail market is expected to touch 30 billion dollars by 2015 from the current 3.5 billion dollars,'' CII Creative Industries Council Chairman and RPG Enterprises Vice Chairman Sanjiv Goenka said while addressing 'Luxury Goods Forum 2008'.

''A new, increasingly affluent India, with a 400 million-strong upper middle class group with rising disposable incomes and a deep rooted entrepreneurial culture, is driving the luxury goods sector,'' Quadrant Communications Ltd Director Geetanjali Kirloskar said.

To broaden their base and increase the volumes of luxury goods market, it is necessary to look beyond the two metros, to the large Indian cities, as well as combine global products with traditional luxury products, she added.

India's increasing engagement with the world is a win-win situation, with Indian companies, such as the Tatas getting high-end brands like the Jaguar, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said.

India, he added, was an increasingly significant global player, and invested over two billion in the US last year, much more than what US has invested in India.

The growth of India has been led by the private sector and India is now a country of aspirers, not merely a country of dreamers, Mr Nath said.

While emphasizing the need for a 'long-term consolidated relationship with India, Altagamma President Leonardo Ferragamo said key factors that like reduction in duties, growing tourism, appropriate retail spaces, and university and design schools for technical and creative skills development would help the sector grow faster.

An MOU signed between CII and Altagamma was also signed which aims at strengthening economic ties in the luxury goods sector as well as further cultural relationships between the two countries.

UNI SR MP RK2119