Mumbai: Financing deals for infrastructure projects are surging on market expectations that the next government will come through with at least some of the spending that politicians are promising now during a heated election campaign.
Local-currency loans for projects came to Rs 52,000 crore ($7.5 billion) in the quarter to March 31, the highest since 2011, and compared with Rs 14,400 crore in the previous three months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
As India aims to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024, the government is pushing to eliminate bottlenecks to growth, and is responding to voters' frustration with problems such as an inadequate number of expressways, crowded commutes and congested airports. The ruling BJP said it will seek capital investments totaling $1.44 trillion by 2024 if voted back to power next month, while the main opposition Congress party is calling for modernising all outdated rail infrastructure and increasing the length of national highways.
India's focus on infrastructure will support growth in the sector, though the expansion will be hampered by land acquisition issues, according to Fitch Solutions Macro Research. For lenders, an increase in project financing will give them access to relatively low-risk, mainly government-backed deals for long periods, at a time when they are struggling to deal with the worst non-performing loan ratio among the world's major economies.
"The pipeline for infra projects is expected to rise after the elections, with many projects likely to be funded by the private sector," according to Vishal Kotecha, Associate Director for Infrastructure and Project Finance at India Ratings & Research. "Airports are undergoing significant expansion in capex, which would give an impetus to new financing."
Infrastructure projects that the government is considering include a national rail freight corridor, a second airport and trans-harbor link in the financial hub Mumbai, a high-speed rail network in Western India and a controlled-access highway between Mumbai and Delhi and Nagpur in Central India.
— Bloomberg
