Indian Embassy, Vienna
around 200 orders a day.
on their own.
■■ What are your views on the improving startup ecosystem in India?
■■ Do you believe Indian startups have a potential to become global brands?
There is a significant difference in the ecosystem compared to five years ago. What is happening is that a lot of money is going into a lot of startups, whether it is going through the right channel is something we whould be focusing on. Secondly, there is still a lot of improvement required on the regulatory front. However, the last budget announced around Rs 10,000 crore for startups but there is still a lot of improvement required in many areas relating to the regulatory management of startups in India.
There is a huge opportunity for startups to make a global name for themselves. At the same time, there is a huge opportunity to redefine the existing businesses. For instance, India has moved faster to mobile from desktop or laptops as compared to any other market and changes like these are expected to disrupt the conventional businesses and at the same time deliver many unique startups from India. Especially the environment in India is much more stable as compared to China which is a big plus for financial investors coming into the country.
■■ Do you believe steps like National Policy for Entrepreneurship are moving in the right direction? Yes, steps like these are in the right direction and such a policy is the need of the hour. While the acceptability towards entrepreneurship has increased but there is still a social stigma involved in becoming a first generation entrepreneur straight out of college or after leaving a well settled job. For instance, parents earlier used to discourage a kid playing cricket but the incoming of IPL changed a lot of things and opened a gamut of opportunities. What is happening now is with the growth in the success of startups in India; parents will soon start and encourage the kids to start
Rising India: rising millionaires by Ravi IBEF India.
Capoor,
IAS,
CEO,
With a healthy jump in the number of ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) households in last one year, India is now home to over 928 households that have more than US$ 100 million in private wealth. Overall, India’s ranking among countries in terms of the number of UHNW individuals has risen to fourth spot in 2014 from the 13th position in 2013, according to the recently released report from The Boston Consulting Group titled ‘Global Wealth 2015: Winning the Growth Game’. US is the country
with the largest number of UHNW households at 5,201, followed by China (1,037), the UK (1,019), India (928) and Germany (679) in 2014. According to another report, India ranks on the third spot among global billionaires with 97 Indian billionaires following US and China. Private wealth in China and India registered a strong growth, largely driven by investments in local equities. It is noteworthy that China’s equity market rose by 38 per cent and India’s by 23 per cent in past one year. Factors like the continued economic expansion of China and India is driving growth in wealth in the Asia-Pacific region, the BCG report said. In fact, with a projected US$ 57 trillion in 2016, AsiaPacific (excluding Japan) is expected to surpass North America (a projected US$ 56 trillion) as the wealthiest region in the world. However, wealth in India is projected to record the fastest growth of 21 per cent between 2014 and 2019 – double the growth rate of the next fastest wealth creator China (10.3 per cent). Global private financial wealth grew by nearly 12 percent in 2014 to reach a total of US$ 164 trillion, in line with 2013, when global wealth also grew by just over 12 per cent. However, the total number of millionaire households (those with more than US$ 1 million in private wealth) reached 17 million in 2014, up strongly from 15 million in 2013.
INDIAN EMBASSY LIBRARY ■■ The Embassy’s library is opened daily from 10am to 1pm without appointment. ■■ Our collection contains more than 2000 titles in dozens of categories. ■■ For appointments outside the opening hours or other inquiries, please contact the information assistant under info.vienna@ mea.gov.in or 015058666 33 ■■ Download our latest catalog of books under indianembassy.at/pdf/ EmbassyLibrary.pdf India Newsletter • 15