The Hindu Business Line : Hindujas sign MoU with Qatar for infrastructure projects

THE Hinduja Group has announced an investment initiative totalling $10 billion with Qatar for infrastructure projects through an Indo-Qatar fund with an initial corpus of $1 billion.

"Hindujas and the Qatar Government would contribute equally to the fund ($500 million each) as corpus for projects in India and Qatar to set up manufacturing facilities and infrastructure projects," Mr R.J. Shahaney, Chairman of Hinduja group company Ashok Leyland Project Services, said, according to the Emirates News Agency, WAM, which cited local media reports.

As part of the initiative, the Hinduja group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce of Qatar for joint participation and investment in the two countries.

While group President Mr G.P. Hinduja signed on behalf of the group, the Economy and Commerce Minister, Mr Mohammad Bin Ahmad AlThani, signed for the Qatar Government. Speaking about the level of investment in projects in areas such as infrastructure, banking and financial services, information technology, manufacturing, healthcare and education and entertainment industry, Mr Shahaney said, "It can be between $5 billion and $10 billion."

On the Hinduja group's exposure in these projects, he said, "We would like to have equity in each of the projects. We will involve a suitable Indian company for specific projects. The Hinduja group's overall exposure could be around $2.5 billion," he added.

All projects with Qatar will be 50:50 joint venture and Hinduja's will create a special purpose vehicle for each project to take a suitable partner.

In addition to core projects in manufacturing, infrastructure and services, the Hinduja group has also proposed setting up of a special economic zone in Qatar where a specific place could be created for Indian companies to set up manufacturing units to take advantage of favourable investment climate and tax regime.

For example, Qatar and Hindujas can set up a plant to convert alumina from bauxite in India and a separate JV could be set up in Doha for extracting aluminium from this alumina, he said, according to the report.

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