Although members of India's fund management industry are keen to keep up with East Asian markets that have jumped on the Reit bandwagon, the Indian market is several years away from introducing any real estate investment funds, says Alokita Jha, analyst at San Rafel, California-based Roulac Global Funds. Jha, who is based in Hyderabad, provides research to Roulac's recent global real estate fund.
Speaking at a FundsWorld conference in Mumbai, Jha says the government rejected initial proposals she had helped draft for real estate investment trusts Reits as long ago as 2001 because regulators distrusted the idea of leverage.
Recently the funds industry, represented by the...