extent. These films were dubbed in Russian and shown in theatres throughout the Soviet Union. The films from Bollywood also strengthened family values, which was a big factor for their popularity with the government authorities in the Soviet Union� (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollywood) Bollywood is hugely popular in Africa with over 60% of African Nations becoming a commercial success for Bollywood. After liberalization some of the domestic film production giants started to explore the possibilities of international market. Yashraj Productions and Rajshri Production, UTV are the key player in this sector. Others are making collaboration with international distributors to distribute their films internationally. As a consequence, film exports have grown from more than US$ 48.4 million in1998 (198 titles) to around US$ 111 million in 2001. Presently Indian films are exported to around 95 countries world wide. Among them the US and Canada accounted for 30% of the total exports (by volume of prints0 in the year 2000, followed by the UK (25%) (Audio-visual Policies and International Trade: The Case of India, HWWA-Report, Hamburg Institute of International Economics, 2003) The report also predicted that the overseas market for Indian films, which is currently worth $162m (Rs7bn), will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18% which is higher than the CAGR of the domestic box office at 16%. (FICCI-Frames conference, 2007 March 26-28) Globalization and news threats for domestic film distribution India after independence adopted an economic system which called protectionism. It was socialist in its economic planning. Sometimes it was criticized as the License Raj (investment, industrial and import licensing). But drastic changes occurred during the late 80s when Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi decided to open the market for privatization and globalization. At that time India faced a severe depletion in foreign exchange reserves. Also during that time foreign debt reached its peaks. The condition got worse in such a state that in 1991, the country had just enough foreign exchange left to pay for a few weeks of imports. World Bank and International Monetary Fund advised Indian Government to open up the economy for multinational companies and foreign direct investment.
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