ICICI Bank 2008 Annual Report Download - page 6

Letter from the Managing Director & CEO
Dear Stakeholders,
We are passing through an exciting as well as challenging
phase in the global economy and in India. The strong growth
momentum of the Indian economy over the past few years
and the continuing transformation of India have changed our
positioning in the world. Indian business and Indian talent
have made their mark in every sphere and continue to do so.
The growth outlook for the Indian economy remains strong.
While the services sector and household consumption and
asset creation were the key growth drivers over the past
few years, industrial investment, in both infrastructure and
manufacturing, is emerging as the key growth driver for
the coming years. While difficulties experienced in global
markets and the challenge of domestic inflation driven by
global factors and supply side constraints would continue
to test the economy’s resilience, we are confident that
strong fundamental factors of domestic demand and global
competitiveness would continue to support high growth
rates for the foreseeable future.
At the ICICI Group, our strategy of building multiple growth
engines across the spectrum of financial services and
maintaining appropriate levels of capital is standing us in
good stead during this period. At a more basic level, our
focus on building strategic agility and strong execution
capability enables us to shift gears and focus as required by
the opportunities and the environment at different times. We
have thus recalibrated our business mix, with the corporate
& investment banking segment becoming an increasingly
important growth driver, offsetting the relative moderation in
the retail segment, which continues to be the largest part of
our balance sheet. We are focusing on strengthening our retail
liability franchise in India as well as in select international
markets, to support our strong asset origination capabilities
and meet the demand for retail credit in India and Indian
corporate credit both in India and globally. Our non-banking
businesses, namely insurance, asset management, private
equity and securities, continue to sustain their leadership
positions. We see robust growth in financial services in India
and in the select segments of international markets where
we operate. With our capital raising exercise in 2007, we are
now well-capitalised to support this growth.
Since its inception, the ICICI Group has been a facilitator of
India’s growth, through all its activities, such as domestic and
cross-border finance for corporates, mortgage and consumer
lending, technology-driven transaction banking, equity
financing for businesses and innovative insurance products.
In recent years, we, as part of a larger systemic drive, have
accorded a special emphasis to the issue of inclusive growth.
This is driven by a realisation that while a large part of India’s
growth momentum is self-sustaining, there is a need to build
capacity among the less advantaged sections of society to
participate in this growth and indeed add to it. This would
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