ICICI Bank 2012 Annual Report Download - page 41

Annual Report 2011-2012 39
Project finance
As India enters the Twelfth Five Year Plan period, significant opportunities are expected in project
financing across infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. The road sector will witness considerable
activity with award of more projects supported by measures like e-tendering implemented by National
Highways Authority of India (NHAI). With various major and minor ports preparing to award projects for
new cargo berths and container terminal development, the port sector is also expected to attract higher
investments. The power sector has witnessed a moderation in investment plans, primarily on account
of concerns over fuel availability and the financial position of state-owned power distribution utilities
that are the primary purchasers of power. There continues to be a significant demand-supply gap in
the power sector and hence investments made in this sector are expected to be viable. Going forward,
while generation projects are expected to be fewer in number given the significant capacity creation
that is already underway, the regional transmission corridors for strengthening the national grid are
expected to see more investments. The Government’s proposal to set up a coal sector regulator and
introduce competitive bidding for allocation of coal blocks will spur private sector investments in the
development of coal blocks. In the oil and gas sector, activity is likely to be led by demand for gas and
associated investment in LNG terminals. With the increasing demand supply gap, the fertiliser sector
is expected to see new capacity additions. In addition, emerging sectors such as water and waste
management are likely to witness fresh investments.
We will continue to focus on meeting the long-term financing requirements of Indian corporates to
enable them to contribute in the development of infrastructure and other projects. We believe that
our long experience in project finance, our comprehensive domain expertise and sound due diligence
coupled with our ability to offer innovative, structured and customised solutions will help us capitalise
on opportunities and cater to financing requirements in the years to come.
International Banking
Our international banking strategy is focused on providing solutions for the international requirements
of our Indian corporate clients, facilitating the growing trade and capital flows between India and the
rest of the world and establishing ICICI Bank as the preferred bank for non-resident Indians in key global
markets. Further, during 2012, India continued to emerge as a top target market for most major global
corporations. ICICI Bank’s International Banking Group supports such plans by establishing relationships
with major global corporations. We also seek to build stable funding sources and strong syndication
capabilities to support our corporate and investment banking business, and to expand private banking
operations for India-centric asset classes.
Our international footprint today consists of subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Russia and Canada,
branches in the United States, Singapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Dubai International Finance
Centre and Qatar Financial Centre and representative offices in the United Arab Emirates, China, South
Africa, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Bank’s wholly owned subsidiary ICICI Bank
UK PLC has eleven branches in the United Kingdom and a branch each in Belgium and Germany.
ICICI Bank Canada has nine branches. ICICI Bank Eurasia, our Russian subsidiary, is headquartered in
Moscow with a branch in St. Petersburg. We opened our second retail branch in Singapore in fiscal
2012.
In fiscal 2012, global economic activity picked up at differential rates with emerging markets
experiencing strong growth and developed markets continuing to face challenges. However, as the
overall global economic environment improved the pace of recovery in international trade and capital
flows strengthened significantly. In this changing environment, we continued to maintain adequate
capital and focused on risk containment in our international operations. We also focused on improving
the funding profile in our international operations. We continued to focus on expanding our trade finance
business and our relationships with global corporates doing business in India.
We gained considerable market share in remittances during fiscal 2012 and continued to develop
products and service offerings to meet the requirements of the NRI community. The emphasis was
on delivering a high quality customer service experience across the widely dispersed NRI community.